Never mess with the Rift
by jammydoughnut
Summary: Keeping it together with just three people's impossible so Jack calls in some help. Later on we find out a little more about the Time Agency and the distance Jack will go to keep them altogether. Started before Children so pretend it hasn't happpened
1. Prologue

Welcome to my second rabbit warren of plot bunnies. I'm recycling my character, Jenny, from my first missive, Hello Again, but if you want to get started straight away on this one here is her one line biog. Jenny is from a different planet brought here half a millennium ago by you know who in a blue box. She ages slowly and heals quickly and was once a Torchwood agent in the 1950's till they found out and tortured her for her "Alien Secrets". She spent the last thirty or so years working as a doctor and rediscovered Torchwood Cardiff under difficult circumstances just before Something Borrowed, ended up generally saving the day and but declined the offer to stay around.

I think you get the picture, I'll shut up now shall I???

Enjoy.

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Jack sat with his head in his hands staring at the grain on his desk. It had seen so many things over the years, including things Ianto would rather not have revealed in public, but it didn't hold the answers today. He was bone tired, the last few weeks had taken their toll on him and the rest of the team, well Gwen and Ianto, were only just holding it together. As if loosing Tosh and Owen wasn't bad enough, clearing up the mess left by his own flesh and blood while doing the day job with only half as many people as normal took the biscuit. They might just have managed it but then the earth went and moved solar systems and he had to go running off to save it. Meeting all his friends again and adding a few more had been just the tonic he needed and he had bounced back into the Hub with a renewed vigour forgetting that not everyone had enjoyed the experience.

He had stepped through the cog and nearly gone arse over tip on the thousands of used shell casings then nearly had a panic attack when he saw the Dalek, he had pulled his Webley out and fired off all six rounds at the metallic being before he had even drawn breath. It was then he had heard the whimpering from under the desk, with the ease of too many years practice he reloaded the barrel while walking and demanding the miscreant showed themselves. He should have known the sound anywhere but the blood was rushing round his ears. Next to the desks in the main area was Ianto with the ammo box half full of the used casings. He was shaking violently reaching out one hand automatically to pick up the shiny brass but never connecting, the vocalisations not matching anything he had ever heard before. He holstered his gun and whispered he young mans name, scared of spooking him, and crouched next to him gently picking up the shaking hand in his own. The fingertips were bloody, god only knows how long he had been repeating this movement, the floor had track lines in dried blood. Jack swept his other hand across Ianto's jaw and gently lifted his chin up, there was little behind the eyes he looked deeply into. Jack came forward and rested his forehead on Iantos before pulling him unresisting into a crushing bear hug.

Jack didn't know how long they had sat on the cold slightly damp floor together. Gwen had come in the next morning and quietly joined them, her eyes were still red from the night before and as soon as she saw them she started again. This wasn't like the last time Jack had disappeared, they had given him permission and had joined him from afar, they knew he was back in the country, in the right time and Ianto had told her to go home. She had been grateful because all she wanted to do was make sure Rhys was still there. The presence of the additional body finally broke the silence and Jack pulled back, he swept a thumb over Iantos tears and gave Gwen the sort of embrace that would have had rugby players begging for mercy.

"You know I've really gotta pee" said Jack trying to straighten out.

Gwen punched him quite hard on the arm while Ianto chuckled and tried to unfold himself, both legs had gone to sleep he had been there such a long time.

"I'm glad you came back, Rift's been quiet since everything shifted though, thank God." Said Gwen.

"Did you doubt I would?" asked Jack genuinely shocked as he caught Ianto when the dead leg betrayed him

"I knew you would come back." Said Ianto quietly.

Jack went to freshen up and smelt the wonderful aroma of coffee being brewed. The TARDIS might well be sentient but she hadn't a clue how to make a good cup of Joe, he scrambled back up into his office and back out onto the gantry and shuddered at the sight of the metal monster. Gwen was checking through the activity monitor, Jack glanced over her shoulder.

"I guess the change of address cards haven't arrived yet." Said Jack glad for the down time from the space junk and various alien visitors that normally made up a days activity. "We should make the most of it, take the day off Gwen Cooper – Williams go show your man how grateful you are to be alive."

"But what if something happens?" she asked, partly unable to comprehend what she would do with free time.

"UNIT owe me a little favour and they need me to keep quiet for a while." He said tapping the side of his nose, "But before you go we need to get rid of that." He said pointing at the metal shell of the Dalek, "I want it incinerating, it gives me the creeps."

"Do you want coffee first?" asked Ianto, somehow looking smart in a crumpled suit carrying his tray. "Sorry I think your favourite got broken when we moved." He said handing over Tosh's old mug.

Jack put down the mug, took the tray from his hand and shoved it at Gwen before claiming his lips with the fervour of a man in the desert without a drink.

"I love you Ianto Jones." He said when he finally came up for air.

"What I think you mean is you love my coffee." Said Ianto in his normal sardonic way, but the way he looked down at the end of his sentence betrayed his gratitude.

That had been three weeks ago, UNIT had sent a few of their most trusted guys over but they hadn't lasted a week before Jack got sick of them. Ianto had managed to get him to stay away from the base for just over 29 hours then given up, and of course where Jack was Ianto also stayed. Gwen had taken a week to recover, Rhys had complained that she hadn't woken up for the first 36 and wasn't in the mood for anything else but in his voice you could hear the pride in his wife. They finally came to the arrangement that Rhys would come in and stay when she was watching the monitors, Jack never went far either so no one ever truly got a rest. Breaking point had only been delayed.

In front of him was a pile of potential recruits, people who he had met, souls who had somehow come into contact with the aliens and rift scatter in the past few years. There were one or two suggestions from UNIT and a couple of names on the back of a fag packet posted by Archie from the side of Loch Ness. But none of them had the right feel, you didn't interview for Torchwood, you were found – unless you were Ianto and then he found you and bless that day. No there was nothing more for it thought Jack as he squared off the papers noisily banging them this way and that on his desk there was only one person he could call on, though he didn't have a clue if the call would be welcomed. He picked up the phone and dialled her messaging service.


	2. A New Begining

It was an incongruous sight in the first class lounge of Lima Airport, travel stained and world weary stood a woman in battered walking boots. The rest of the pampered wannabes and tycoons sniffed slightly as a few more strands of hair fell out of the matted pony tail turned bun when she scratched at her scalp, but it was noted by a long legged creature that the tan was perfect. She pulled down her little black Armani number so it covered the line where she had forgotten the suntan lotion and burnt herself to blisters the week before. Long legs was about to complain about the riff raff element standing there when the lounge manager shook the dirty hand and handed over a large expensive looking couturier box and pointed the way to the shower area. Just right she thought as she re-adjusted the frog eye sized dark glasses that covered the squint she had hidden from birth and the black eye given to her by her mob boyfriend, it wouldn't do for the paparazzi to know about that.

The people-watching mob girlfriend adjusted her book, she couldn't read but it covered the fact she was spying on the world round her and she thought made her look intelligent. She watched for the mucky thing to come back out of the bathroom area, she would have to complain if that sat next to her all the way back to London but instead after a few minutes she was escorted to her flight. Hopefully that unfortunate woman was going back to what ever hole she had climbed out of in somewhere poor like Russia or Portugal. She settled into her massive seat at the front of the plane and smile graciously at the beautiful person sat next to her, though the dark glasses obscured her vision somewhat.

"Flavia." She said flourishing a hand like the Pope with her fake Italian accent; this person wasn't to know she started life as Francis on a council estate in Toxteth.

"Jenny Smith." Replied the passenger and proffered her own hand, painted nails covering the grime underneath even though the hardened skin on one of the fingers should have given away the fact she had just spent weeks trekking and fending for herself. The wannabe nodded in approval and went back to sipping her champagne, no riff raff here.

After the uneventful flight the first class passengers were escorted to the lounge, Flavia looked a little more haggard than when she had stepped onboard. She had spent the last twenty minutes of the flight adding a layer of slap and powder but still failed to cover the livid scar at the bottom of her ear and in her hair line where she had tried to hold back the years. She looked over at the bitch that had been sat next to her, still perfect and she hadn't choked half the cabin in a cloud of powder and blusher. Pah she thought she would loose it all when age caught up with her, what was she, 30 perhaps, a few years and it was all over for her. The girl was escorted away by the lounge manager and Flavia sat and waited for her car, the London traffic was slower than flying across the Atlantic.

As she stepped into her car she caught sight of the perfect tan again, being handed a crash helmet, stood there in perfect silhouette, tight leather jacket and the cheek to look good in safety wear, she cursed one final time as the Ducati cut through the traffic at Concord roundabout and left her with a traffic jam all the way back to Chelsea.

The sleek black bike with the sleek leather clad rider purred to a halt just behind the Senedd. The sun was starting to go down over the Bay as the rider started to walk across the Plass, the few tourists around possibly thought the rider had been a few minutes down the road as the dark hair tumbled out of the helmet, none of them would have guessed at lunch time she was at Heathrow. She nearly skipped down the steps to the waters edge and along to the "tourist information office" even though she thought it would be unlikely to be open with the manning Jack now had. She wasn't really thinking about anything as she was nearly knocked into the water by two very large, very loud Americans, both sported shorts that fitted where they touched, t-shirts that were emblazoned with the logos of where they had previously been, though on the man the only thing showing of the Venus d'Milo was a disembodied head and feet as the rest had been subsumed into the rolls of fat.

"Say You." Shouted the man rudely, though Jenny wondered if it was actually his normal speaking voice "I really wouldn't bother, they wouldn't last a second with service like that in New York." Jenny was sure he raised his hand to his heart in salute. God Bless America.

"I'm sorry to hear that Sir, I'm the general manager for the area, may help at all." The fat woman looked her up and down, she never trusted anyone without a doughnut in their hand.

"New transport policy, eco friendly bikes but health and safety went a bit mad" she flashed a billion dollar smile that would have made Jack proud, of course her teeth were Hollywood perfect which didn't go unnoticed.

"All we wanted to know was where the damn Dragon Farm was." He held a leaflet for the Black Mountains Sausage farm, this was the reason the government had forced them pointout that they were really made of pork. "Don't look at me stupid I know there aint real dragons no more but I keep getting told about this lava bread so we wanna see the volcano."

Jenny smiled the sort of smile you gave a slightly confused child and took the top of the mans arm to turn him round and escort him back to the office. "I know just the place for you, little bit of a climb, let me get you the leaflet."

The office was dark and cold and with Bubba and Mrs Bubba standing in the public area there wasn't much room left to move as she found the leaflet for Snowdonia, Bubba looked at it with little comprehension, Jenny wondered if he could even read it, certainly old enough to need glasses, Mrs Bubba hoisted up her ample chest and snorted in the general direction of Ianto asleep on the counter, Jenny wondered if she could even speak for herself.

"Bless" said Jenny quietly and then whispered conspiratorially "He hasn't been well but he so loves his job he insists on coming in even though he hasn't got long left." White lies she thought looking at her watch, the shop should be closed soon so really he didn't have long left on this shift. It had the desired effect of shaming the pair into silence. She looked back at Ianto, to be honest his 5 o'clock shadow was more like a three day weekend, the hollowness of his checks suggested he wasn't eating enough and the bags under his eyes would have carried her clothes for the past six months.

"Say can we get a taxi here?" asked Bubba quietly stabbing at the leaflet.

"Tonight?" asked Jenny innocently

"Of course tonight we wanna go see this and we're on a schedule." His tone was already returning to loud and brash.

"Let me see what I can do." She skirted round the desk and saw the phone number for the alien cab firm Ianto had used before, quietly she told the operator what was going on and booked the cab, they would take them a few miles out of the city before explaining the distances involved and by then it would be dark and too late to complain. She escorted them back to the door with directions to the pick up point and waved them off, back in Wood Stump Ohio they would regale their neighbours with tales of the taxi driver that had a forked tongue because he was so proud of his national symbol and the merits of welsh whiskey. Much more they couldn't remember after that, something in the water they thought.

As soon as the fat twins had left she quietly closed the door and flipped the closed sign, through out the whole conversation Ianto hadn't moved. She watched him for a few seconds to make sure he was just asleep and not victim to some alien plot and went back into the small staff area behind the desk, picking up the sample 'welsh heather' pillow, wasn't heather Scottish? Anyhow, she gently lifted his head from the wood work and slipped it underneath. He was going to have a bad neck as it was, a flat face would just make it worse, he was in such a deep sleep he didn't move. She automatically stroked his hair and then hit the door button. She winced as it activated the sirens but he was still spark out.

Descending through the floors she finally stood in front of the cog as it slowly rolled back, many years ago it had allowed the small two man submarine out into the Bay but she remembered the earthquake, read Rift activity, that had finally done for the sub-surface tunnel and lock system. Some creative recycling had obviously brought it up a few levels to the dry side. She carefully stepped over the sill and found herself staring down the barrel of a gun.

"Jack it's me, it's Jenny." She said slowly, she held her one free hand up and opened the palm of the other inside the crash helmet she was still holding. She looked at Jack, trying not to make antagonistic eye contact while she quickly checked his condition, clocking the fact that the safety wasn't on.

"Jack, put the gun down." She said in a plain, strong voice learnt over many years, specially designed to calm any and every situation. She looked up and made eye contact and realised he was staring straight through her, there was a barely perceptible shake starting in every muscle of his body. "Jack I'm going to put the helmet down then I'm going to come towards you." She said stooping and laying down the helmet as quietly as possible, What the Hell was happening here? Jack moved his other hand up to steady the shaking and swallowed hard as if he was about to speak.

"Don't move." Burst from his lips in a hoarse voice, "Move and I'll shoot."

She stopped again and smiled, she needed to show him she was no threat and give herself time to work out why Jack was acting so strange. She gave him a quick visual appraisal, certainly the sheen of sweat over grey features wasn't normal, the ever so steady hand was shaking and that glazed look was worrying.

"Jack Harkness, you're not well I need to take a look at you." She edged forward again "Remember Jack you left a message with the bank that you needed me to come back and help out, you said that I was the only one you could trust at the moment." Suddenly the thought hit her that this could be any number of alien parasites or infections as well as a wide number of beasts that could mimic any form they wanted to, hell she had even once sat on a very convincing Dejunite Warrior disguised as a sofa. She had thought it was the pervy guy from reprographics pinching her backside till she had found most of her skirt had been ingested by the cushion.

She got close enough to slowly reach her hand out and met Jacks, by now it was shaking so much he was having trouble keeping his finger on the trigger. She reached out and slipped the safety back on and took the old fashioned pistol unresisting from his fingers, his head followed the movement but it was slightly slower. She put the gun on the floor and stepped into his personal space before slowly wrapping her arms round him. Jack relaxed into the embrace leaning down to rest his pounding head on her shoulder and encircle his arms round her neck, she rubbed circles on his back and reached up to gently feel his forehead, it didn't take five years of medical school to know he was way hotter than normal.

"Where's Ianto he never lets anyone in without letting me know, he's a good guard dog you know." He mumbled

"Asleep upstairs." She said "You must all be working too hard."

Jack pulled back slightly and looked at his watch "But it isn't five yet he should still be open." He went to tap his comms unit but she stopped him with a light touch on his arm.

"Leave him be for a bit, I've shut up shop. Looks like I got here just in time to stop you all dieing of exhaustion." Jack pulled back and suddenly focused on her face.

"You think I'm a bad boss." He asked, it didn't need a psychologist to tell what had just been going through his mind in the seconds before she had arrived.

"Not in the slightest Jack, you are working to the best of your ability with reduced resource and an exponential growth of activity." She said in what she hoped would come out in a jokey way but Jack didn't really seem to process it.

"Suppose." He said finally stepping back and nearly tripping over his own feet.

Jenny put out a hand to catch him and noticed for the first time the steadily blooming patch of bright red on his left shoulder, she wiped her fingers across her leather jacket and felt the sticky residue of blood. She held them up in front of Jack and pointed to the shoulder in enquiry. He shrugged and winced a second later with the movement,

"It's nothing." He paused for a nano second "but now I look at you I realise what a crime it would have been to shoot someone nearly as good looking as me, I'm voting leather for our new uniform."

"Stop covering Jack." She looked round and pointed at the sofa. "Sit"

He wasn't in the mood to argue and shuffled over to the battered seating, he sat heavily and realised he wouldn't have the strength to get up again. She followed behind him unzipping the jacket to reveal a tight top and near perfect form.

"yep we're going for a new uniform." She snorted a laugh quietly before she started unbuttoning his shirt. "You know I'm a reformed character, one man guy." He said swotting her hand away. She pursed her lips, "I said it's nothing." He repeated in a much stronger tone.

She held he hands up in supplication, "Just doing my job remember?"

"Just immortal with amazing powers of regeneration, remember?" he countered.

She sat heavily next to him, there was little use in starting an argument you were unlikely to win, "What does a girl have to do to get coffee round here?"

"Wake sleeping beauty, unless you want instant?"

"Anything but that fetid crud you get on airplanes, you pay an arm and a leg, turn left not right and it still tastes like the bottom of an ashtray. So you going to tell me what happened this time?" Jack admired the seamless change of tack to get him to talk but you had to get out of bed so much earlier in the day than that to beat Captain Jack Harkness.

"Ah you know, Weevils and shit."

"Define and shit." She asked

"That would be the fact I shot him when he threw himself across my line of sight." Said Ianto's disembodied voice as he dragged himself upto the rec area.

He sat down with a thump next to Jack who reached over and put a hand on his knee,

"That was the third death in as many days, stung to death by something with glass tipped fingers like a nettle, slipped when chasing a Weevil hit his head and fell in the river thereby drowning and then bleeding out from a fairly simple gunshot wound." Said Ianto counting each event off on his fingers. "And each time it takes a little longer to get you back." He laid his hand over Jacks

Jack shrugged painfully as if to remind them it was nothing to him.

"You going to get the lady some coffee?" asked Jack

Jenny held up her hand and hoisted herself off the sofa, "I can get my own, just give me my computer access codes and the armoury code, then go home and sleep, Doctors orders."

Jack looked slightly perplexed. "You think it's that easy?"

"It's easier than that Jack." Said the ever prosaic Ianto, "She has backdoor access to the whole computer system, Tosh reckoned it was one of the hardest she ever had to break and never really got round to changing it."

"Now you tell me?" said Jack in exasperation

"I knew she would be back, saves time in the end." He said simply.

Jack rolled his eyes, why was Ianto always right? Jack stood up slowly, "Would you like the guided tour or do you remember from the last time?" He offered his arm to escort the lady, the thought of more than five minutes without phone calls and alarms, a few uninterrupted hours in a double bed that had matching sheets and natural light and she could have been Darth Vader for all he cared.

Twenty minutes later, with the normal Health and Safety rules re-iterated, don't mess with the rift and don't touch anything you don't recognise Jack and Ianto found themselves standing in front of the place Ianto called home.


	3. Roles reverse

Ianto had trouble opening the door, the mail had piled up so high behind it he had to give a shoulder barge to open it wide enough. He bent down to pick it up and Jack shuffled in behind him, Ianto waited for Jack to start groping his backside and waited a little more before sticking his pert derrière even higher. Failing to get a reaction he gathered up the last of the pizza leaflets and turned to look at him. Jack was shrugging off his coat without moving his left arm and hanging it on the coat rack, that was even more frightening – Jack never tidied up. Ianto touched his back as he walked towards the kitchen but there was little reaction, perhaps Jack had finally reached empty God knows he had.

"Coffee?" He shouted as he started running the water, it came out an attractive brown colour for a few seconds, and checked the fridge and found the milk was now a solid lump.

"Jack I'm going to the shop for milk, order something will you."

Ianto waited for the response from the other room and then waited a bit more, finally he stepped back into the living room, Jack was sat on the sofa with his head thrown back apparently asleep, though Ianto doubted this was actually the case.

"Oi Sleeping Beauty, boots off and order some Chinese."

Jack rolled his head back to the vertical and stretched it from side to side, cracking the vertebrae gaining a scowl from Ianto who hated the noise.

"I'll go get the milk, I need the fresh air." Said Jack standing up with a barely perceptible wobble

"Well you'll have to get changed then, don't want you scaring the natives." Said Ianto pointing at the bloody shirt. Jack looked down at the stain as if he hadn't noticed it before.

"Guess you're walking to the shop then." He said.

Ianto noted the lack of innuendo again, two missed opportunities in ten minutes was quite worrying, he could see an early night coming on so perhaps he would pick up some de-caf. Jack picked up the phone from the table next to him and with worrying ease rattled off their standard order, he didn't even have to remind the take-away of the address, his movements were slightly zombiefied but Ianto wasn't far off that felling himself and he set his internal autopilot to reach the local corner shop.

As he managed to remember how to put one foot in front of the other he put his mind to work thinking about why he was so tired, so he could box it and move on. The work load of aliens and Weevils hadn't really increased, though of course they had less people to manage, the main time thief had been the amount of paperwork and meeting generated by bloody John bloody Hart only surpassed by the endless telephone and actual conferences generated by the re-positioning of the earth. Jack never had patience with any of them but felt he had to be involved before certain groups tried to take over or give Torchwood all the crappy little jobs they didn't want. Ianto mentally ticked off the places he had packed Jacks case for, because he didn't have the time or inclination to manage for himself, London, Paris, New York, Berlin, Tokyo and Rio, Jack had moaned bitterly that the last one because someone had arranged for another one straight after to discuss the clean up of the nuclear facility that was the final resting place of one of his team. Ianto felt bad that he had been quietly pleased at that, Jack and Ipanema Beach - Owen would understand, perhaps it was his last gift to the Tea Boy.

The drizzle was starting as he walked back, he put his head down and walked a little faster when he suddenly felt his pocket move. He pulled out his mobile expecting it to be Jack asking for something extra from the shop but instead it read as one of the automated rift alerts. Ianto swore and started running back to his flat in order to collect Jack. He fumbled with his phone to toggle in the number for the Hub but it started ringing before he got to the end.

"False alarm." Said a cheery voice at the other end.

Ianto stopped running and took a deep breath. "What?" he asked

"Just the local Fuzz trying to offload some human scum on us, which they decided after a brief conversation they would investigate."

"Who, what?" he asked trying to catch his breath

"Oh I'm guessing a jumper, top of a car park, they seem to think the top deck has mystical powers."

"Well there is a small rift flare up there occasionally." Was about all he could manage.

"PC Davidson, really wanted to talk to Gwen but I sent him away with a flea in his ear, anyway you get back to what ever you are doing." Ianto pulled his hand down over his face, they would never hear the end of it from Andy in the next liaison meeting. Ianto grunted his understanding and after a few more exchanges signed off just as he reached the door to find the delivery boy near beating the door down. Ianto tapped him on the shoulder and the boy snapped at him in Mandarin, he didn't have time to waste waiting for him to come back from wherever, he smiled slightly at the generous tip and scuttled back to his bike before Ianto had found his key again.

"Jack." He shouted "Didn't you hear the bloody door?"

He was on the phone wandering slowly round in circles on the small patch of living room floor. There were lots of uh huhs and I sees before Jack finally clicked the mobile off and he let out a great harrumph of breath. Ianto took the phone off him, turned it off and placed it out of reach on the kitchen counter.

"You know I can't do that Ianto." Said Jack calmly

"Yes you can, in fact you are going to have to, have you had a look at yourself in the mirror recently?" he absently ran a hand over his own stubble.

"Guess we've finally found what the breaking point is." Replied Jack quietly "That was UNIT, they seemed a little pissed."

"Jenny told me she was re-arranging your diary for the next couple of weeks, how come you listen to her and not me?" he said spooning out some fried rice.

"Perhaps I should have." He said running his hand up and down Iantos thigh. "I'm sorry. I have been a little pre-occupied with saving the planet so I have somewhere to be born in 3000 years."

"I told you though, there is no need to fly to Cape Town to a conference on vampires just because UNIT snap their fingers, I mean next they'll be telling us to keep a clip of silver bullets in case of werewolves. We deal with extra terrestrial not supernatural."

They sat in silence for a minute or two that seemed to stretch into eternity. Ianto had been trying to get Jack to slow down for weeks, leading to a blazing row about a week and a half ago. Gwen had used all her negotiation skills to try and stop them killing each other and in the end had sent them to opposite ends of the Hub. They hadn't talked for two days, Jack's office went to rats and Gwen again found herself pleading with the pair of them to sort it out. There had been an attempt at concession, that had been the time Jack had rung for Jenny, but he still hadn't slowed down. Ianto had in turn tidied the desk into workable piles in order of urgency and started burning every third letter without even opening it. The strategy worked till he 'disappeared' an official request from the Prime Minister to appear at a private inquiry into the events that led to the apparent movement to a different galaxy. Jack had taken the call from the PMs office cold and had ended up swearing at the most powerful person in the country and telling them to just re-read the official transcript of the last three official enquiries held around the world because he wasn't changing his story. Ianto had apologised four hours later when Jack found him in the far recesses of vault 45 the furthest archive room that was accessible, fifteen minutes later they both agreed for the first time in days, make up sex was the best type.

Jack shovelled some of the chop suey onto his plate and took a mouthful, swallowing without chewing and then ramming in some more.

"Ok I agree, you were right even I can not burn the candles at both ends without dripping hot wax on myself." He raised an eyebrow.

"I'll take that as your admission of fallibility shall I? Does this lead to an apology or am I expecting too much?"

Jack turned with the fork half way back to the plate and quickly swallowed another mouthful before turning into Ianto and grabbing him and capturing his lips in a bruising but tender kiss. Ianto responded quickly, something had been lacking in the stress and fuss of the previous few days and he had felt sorely left out, he moved himself to get closer when Jack suddenly pulled away. Ianto gave a yelp of surprise as Jack sprinted from the room and knocked over a bottle of beer, he called after him simultaneously righting the bottle and moving to the kitchen to grab the roll of kitchen towel. He furiously grabbed sheets of paper off the roll while cursing Jack under his breath for never stopping to think when he heard the noise. He sat back a moment trying to place the sound, weevil then drain went through his head before finally placing it as the sound of a person vomiting. It took another perceptible pause before his brain processed the second thought that Jack was never ill, the bastard didn't do hangovers, flu was a wimpy 21st century affectation and a gun shot was more like a mosquito bite. Ianto started yelling Jack's name for a second time as he ran to the bathroom with the speed of teleportation.

Jack hadn't had time to shut the door so there was no barrier to the sight that caught Ianto's eye. Jack was wedged in-between the toilet bowl and the bath and groaning. He was ashen grey and had his eyes shut and his head laid back as if he had been punched a thousand times. Ianto continued skidding into the room and grabbed Jack by the shoulders.

"Jack, Jack can you hear me?" Demanded Ianto.

Jack groaned and rolled his head forwards and began puking his guts up again, Ianto supported his shoulders as Jack retched and groaned before lapsing into a shallow panting. Jack leant back against Ianto, unable to talk, and tried to nuzzle into the comfort of his lovers chest. Ianto grabbed the bath mat and ran a corner under the bath tap before wiping Jacks sweaty face, he'd never seen Jack in this state before in fact it was rare to see anyone in this state unless they were about to lapse into a coma. No he thought suddenly, when Lisa had been plagued by a migraine and once his room mate in London after a 24 hour bender but neither of those afflictions would bother Jack.

"Jack, can you tell me what's wrong?" he asked gently, he ran a hand down the side of his face and found it was surprisingly warm to the touch. There was an imperceptible roll of the head signifying he didn't know and then more nothing.

Ianto sat holding Jack for a few minutes till his breathing had returned to normal, he was worried but he didn't want to show it, Jack needed solid comfort not panicked flightiness. In a low voice he ascertained that Jack had finished returning his dinner to the world and would feel much better lying down. Ianto slowly eased himself into a standing position without disturbing Jack, flushed the loo and then went to pull Jack into a standing position, Jack whimpered as he pulled on his arm and a fresh bloom of blood started to appear. The two men staggered like drunks the thirty paces to the end of Ianto's bed, in truth Jack was hardly moving and was being dragged like a dead weight until he was unceremonially dropped on the end of Ianto's bed.

"Call. Owen." Said Jack with great difficulty.

Now Ianto was worried.

"Jack, love, Owen's gone, should I call Jenny, remember she came back to the Hub today." He tried to look into his lovers eyes but they were closed, there was a slight nod and Ianto stood up to retrieve his phone from his jeans, Jack wobbled and he placed his free hand on his good shoulder.

"Jenny?" he got an affirmative if distracted reply.

"Is it likely to be anyone else?" He heard something fall in the background and a slight hiss and swearing.

"Are you in the archives?" he asked narrowing his eyes without even thinking,

"Yep, just checking something out in 41, Guess you haven't made it here yet?"

Ianto was momentarily stunned, he thought that that room was inaccessible, he suddenly remembered the need for his call.

"Jenny I need you to come to my flat as soon as you can."

"Is that as in as soon as you can I'm battling a fifteen tentacled alien or in as soon as you can as I need to compare paint samples and can't decide by myself." The attempt at humour fell seriously flat.

"As in Jack appears to be ill."

Ianto heard her stop and then move frantically at the other end of the phone, he could only imagine the carnage she was climbing over if she had gone past the last of the known archive.

"Sorry Ianto could you repeat that, I thought you said Jack was ill."

"I venture as far as very." He said sitting next to Jack and pulling his sweating frame closer.

"Can you get him here?"

"I had difficultly getting him across the hall."

"Ok any ideas what's wrong?"

He could hear her pounding foot steps as she ran back up the corridor, open the door and start up the stairs, three flights to the main floor, it was comforting in a weird way.

"No one minute he was fine and next he's throwing up."

"Alien bite, rift gas, strange plants?" threw in Jenny trying to narrow down the options for treatment to a manageable amount. Suddenly Ianto realised he was crying, he had just come to terms with the fact that he would die and Jack would move on and suddenly the world had turned on it's head.

"I'll be there soon Ianto, see if you can get him comfortable and keep him warm, leave the phone on speaker if you want."

"Number 26B, ring the buzzer and I'll let you in." he clicked the phone off, he couldn't cope with someone hearing him. He moved to pull the duvet over Jacks shoulders when he felt Jack's thumb brushing his wet cheek.

"Immortal remember kiddo." He said breathily.

Together they sat on the end of the bed as if nothing else mattered. And to them it didn't.


	4. A Difficult Decision

I rather lost the will to write after watching CoE, till I decided that I was just going to ignore anything and everything that happened. So sorry if it rambles I didn't really have my mind in the game, I'll find my mojo again soon, I'm sure I saw the cat running out the patio door with it. Here kitty kitty.

Ianto sprinted to the door and ripped it open even before the two tone sound of the door bell had died away. Jenny tripped over the door sill as he practically pulled her inside when she didn't move immediately, the fact she was still removing her helmet and couldn't see didn't seem to matter and she snapped a protest.

"Why the hell didn't you come in the SUV?" Shouted Ianto

"Because someone didn't put the keys on the hook labelled SUV, I didn't think you would be too happy if I hot wired it." She pulled the back pack off and Ianto felt his stomach contract, it was Owens old medical bag, the only thing he had ever kept tidy.

"We didn't really do a proper induction." He mumbled, already dragging her back towards the bedroom.

"Well where's the fire?" she asked with a hand on her hip

"It's Jack he started throwing up, he never throws up," he seemed to be reassuring himself "But it's his shoulder, I tried to make him more comfortable, get him to lie down, get him undressed, but his t-shirt." The staccato bursts stopped as he swallowed down some bile. She put a hand on his shoulder just before he entered the bedroom again.

"Don't worry Ianto, 45 years a doctor and hundreds of years as a nurse there isn't much I haven't seen and dealt with, we'll sort it."

He just shook his head. "You've never seen this."

He moved back into the room and immediately went to Jacks side. Jenny followed, she couldn't explain to anyone how it felt in those first few seconds, to her it wasn't Jack sat there on the end of the bed it was a patient, not much more than a slab of meat that needed help, so detached. In the few paces in took to get her in front of him and on her knees so he was at more or less the same height as the hunched figure she could already see the pain, notice some of the more obvious injuries and note the deep level of shock her patient was in.

"Hey Jack, I never thought you would be my first patient." She said gently running her hand down his thigh to check his reactions and catching his wrist to get a pulse. Most of the modern puppies she had recently left behind would be stuffed without all the bleeps and whirrings of the vast array of modern medical equipment. Even in the field you got pocket monitors for this and that these days. She couldn't find a radial pulse and she could see how much problem he was having even breathing, he was leaning sideways, favouring his right arm, the one not cold and loosing sensation due to lack of blood. She brought Ianto in a little closer and gently pulled Jack over to lean on him, placing the near useless arm across his lap.

"Jack." She said sharply felling for his carotid pulse and thankfully finding something weak and thready but there. "Jack, where does it hurt?"

She kept a hand on his knee to reassure him of her presence while she opened the medical kit and one handedly pulled out a few bits of kit.

"Jack, did you hear Jenny, she needs to know where it hurts so she can help you." Said Ianto gently, Jack responded slumping more then tried to take a normal breath but ended up with a shuddering panting instead. Ianto's eyes widened to the size of saucers and he looked panic stricken at her, she smiled something close to reassurance and put a hand on Jacks chest.

"Ok we'll make the questions easier shall we?" She could feel the heat of his fever and the wet slick of sweat through his t-shirt. He gave a single tiny nod and opened his eyes a little, he hadn't been this helpless in so many years, he didn't object to the oxygen mask slipping over his nose and mouth, he normally hated that because it made him feel claustrophobic, but this time the slightly cooler air and the high concentration of oxygen gave him a tiny amount of relief.

"Jack just squeeze my hand if I'm right." She felt a small amount of pressure, she had no idea how she was going to ask some of the questions she needed answers to.

"Are you in pain?" The grip tightened, it was almost a given and a negative would have been more worrying but she had to ask.

"Is the pain mainly in your left shoulder?" squeeze

"Do you hurt anywhere else?" nothing, his unfocused eyes moved to lock onto hers and she caught Ianto's hand moving round his waist to add a comforting hug. She needed to look at that messy shoulder but there was a much more pressing problem before that, the two sides of his chest were moving in opposite directions the left side seemed to be inflating as he breathed out indicating a punctured lung. It seemed that whatever was in his shoulder was in deep but she couldn't get him to lift his head up to get a look.

"Ianto what did you see there?" she asked to try and complete the initial diagnosis.

Ianto swallowed convulsively again and squeezed at Jacks waist

"The bullet wounds from where I shot him this morning." God that seemed a long time ago. "They should have healed, he died, he always goes back to normal after he dies but they kept bleeding. I didn't think when I saw them bleeding I just thought it was normal, I thought perhaps they might be infected, I got an infection once from a bullet, it grazed my knee a couple of degrees more and the bastard would have knee capped me." He stopped seemingly unable to go on then took a deep breath and started again. "I thought he was just tired, that the Chinese was a bit dodgy so I told him to lie down and I wanted to get him comfortable. I took off his boots and then his shirt but I couldn't get him to lift his arms to get the undershirt off. I pulled it by the hem, I wanted him to stop playing up but it wouldn't come off, he screamed, Jack I hurt you I'm so sorry, it wouldn't come up I didn't understand why, I do now." He stopped again, he shuddered as a flash back replayed in his mind. "It wouldn't move because it's embedded in there, the regeneration, the thing that brings him back to life it left the fabric in his flesh."

Jenny closed her eyes and breathed out, ok not much in the teaching manual about this one, nothing ever was at Torchwood. She slotted the information into the bigger picture and placed it behind the most pressing need, he was slowly drowning in his own blood, Priorities.

"Would you like something for the pain?" Stupid question, he nearly broke her fingers.

"Ianto, is he allergic to anything?" she said taking her hand away and ferreting round for a suitable canula

"Tidying up, writing reports and staying on his own side of the bed." He said running a hand gently down Jacks cheek. "I'm afraid he's never been ill before, never thought to ask." There was still too much he didn't know, he could feel he slight shake of his lovers head against his collar bone and he let Jenny know. She opened the sterile packet and threw it back in the bag, Owen would have made sure it didn't fall in the bag he thought irrationally, she took Jacks hand and flexed it in order to find a half decent vein that hadn't collapsed with the fluid loss. Jack pulled his hand back,

"Don't tell me the brave Captain Jack Harkness is afraid of a little scratch." She said taking the needle away from his vision for a moment, a trick she had from her experience of dealing with screaming kids. He lifted his hand up to remove the mask and Ianto went to stop him but Jenny lifted her own hand to help.

"Don't let me die, again" he managed with some difficulty.

Ianto pulled the mask back over his face and looked at Jenny.

"Before he got this bad he told me that when he" Ianto swallowed trying not to say the D word, it still caused him problems even though Jack took it in his stride, he missed out the end of the sentence and took a different tack. "If it happens too often his body seems to take short cuts and doesn't reject foreign objects but tries to incorporate them."

Jenny looked down at the plastic and metal canula in her hand, no wonder he had pulled away having that fixed under your skin as you body re-grew round it had to be painful.

"If anything happens I'll whip it out, but nothing is going to happen with me on the case, super doc."

Ianto squeezed Jack again, he wasn't going to tell her she was right the first time too, he was great at ordering everyone else to have blood tests but he just pulled rank whenever the flu jab came round. She took Jacks hand again and he didn't resist as she flicked the plastic cover from the wide bore needle, he did hiss as it went in though, it was like all his senses were heightened and he didn't like it.

She drew a milky liquid from a small glass bottle and pushed the liquid into the port, Jack could feel it burning the vein as it moved up his arm but within seconds it started to take blessed effect. The world started to move away from him and the pain became like something on the edge of a bubble in a strange way it reminded him what it was to be human. He felt his body moving a bit like the movement of a water bed and he realised Ianto was moving away, the veil lifted slightly and groped into space to try and stop him, but another hand gently caught him and made some soothing noises while trying to prod and poke at his shoulder. He pulled away again like a small child and felt the hot rivers of tears flowing down his cheeks, he wished he had his trusty Webley, even though he knew it would only make it worse. He hadn't felt as sorry for himself in a very long time.

Ianto ran back into the bedroom with the standard lamp from the living room, an armful of clean towels a roll of black plastic bin bags.

"What am I doing with these?" he asked as Jack eyed him with suspicion.

She handed him the IV bag which he smiled goofily at as he hung it on the light fitting,

"I thought you might like to keep the blood off the mattress, couple of the bags on the top sheet, towels on top."

"Ah clever but I could cope with messy sheets you know." He said defending his reputation as a neat freak.

"I'm sure Jack would be more comfortable later on when there isn't a soggy patch underneath him, makes it easier to move the patient too."

"Where the hell do you learn something like that?" Asked Ianto busily tearing sacks from the roll.

"District Nurse in the twenties, people preferred to stay at home, hospitals were where you went to die in those days. Used kitchen tables, billiard tables, it was oil cloth of course not plastic bags and smell of carbolic still has the ability to make me wretch."

Jack felt himself being lifted gently back till he was nearly flat, it didn't help the pain any, Ianto swam into his vision and he could see his lips moving but the sound of buzzing drowned all the noise out. It took him a second or two to realise the sound were his own screams.

"Prepare to be wowed by medical magic boys." She said pushing up the offending T-shirt slightly and rubbing some iodine on Jacks chest, she winked at Ianto and he saw the size of the needle she had in her hand, he talked louder to keep his attention it would just freak him out. She pushed the needle in, Ianto heard the sucking sound, and then turned the tap on the top of it and the sound was not dissimilar to a bottle of fizzy pop opening. Jack took a deeper breath and the subconscious part of his brain realised there was less resistance so forced him into pulling a deep and wheezing gasp reminding Ianto of one or two of his noisier resurrections. The colour started to flood back to his face and he immediately struggled to sit up until the pain in his shoulder caught up with him and he crashed back into the mattress.

"Told you it was magic not a miracle cure and as we all know magic is just slight of hand, don't push it."

She turned back to the bag and started looking for something. Jacks eyes were wildly darting across his chest and then to Ianto face and back again, he pushed the mask up before Ianto could stop him

"What are you just leaving it there?" He snapped.

She turned back with a pair of fabric scissors in her hand, she had taken a quick look at the offending shoulder but it was difficult to really to get a good idea what was going on.

"Normally for a few hours Jack, but with you I've no idea, if it starts to get difficult again or you can feel things returning when we don't want them too I can release a little more air or take it out altogether." She went back to the task in hand, she preferred it went patients were just that, docile, quiet and above all unquestioning.

"Not fond of this t-shirt are you?" she said slicing through the cloth in fluid motion up the middle, Jacks head kept swivelling round like something off the exorcist.

"Jesus Jack will you just play dead for one minute please." Ianto gently gripped Jacks cheek and turned his face to look at him as Jenny started to poke around.

The adrenalin rush was starting to wear off and Jack quietened down again, going from righteous and loud squeals when she started pulling at the fabric merging into his skin to a slight whimper as she got Ianto to hold him on his side as she poked the long nosed tweezers into the exit wound and fabric mix on his back. Finally she stood up and took a pensive stare at the ceiling, Ianto noticed irrationally that she wasn't wearing any gloves as she drummed her fingers on her own throat while she thought.

"How you feeling Jack?" she asked to break the silence.

"Had better days, what's the diagnosis Doc?"

She fiddled with the IV feed, stared at the wall for a few seconds more, then looked round the room. She wanted somewhere to sit, it was irrational but she needed to sit down, but it was a mans room and they had no need of a dressing table. She finally decided to screw professional etiquette and carefully sat on the edge of the bed. She looked obliquely at the wall, she couldn't look at Jack, in truth what she had seen freaked her out.

"It goes something like this." She said still trying to form the words into a coherent sentence. "Ianto was right, the fabric of your undershirt does seem to have become embedded into your shoulder. Right through every part of the tissue, skin, muscle, if I pull on one side the other side moves too."

Ianto was slowly going from pink through white and onto green, but he steadfastly held Jacks hand.

"I think it might also have caught the top of your lung which caused the collapse."

"So if you don't take it out the lung will just keep collapsing?" asked Ianto quietly.

"I guess so." She said taking a deep breath "Without some serious imaging equipment I don't know one hundred percent, it could be from the original injury."

"There's a scanner in the Hub, lots more equipment we could get Jack there and see."

"I don't think Jack is in a fit state to be moved, it seems like he has a raging infection, massive fluid loss and I gave him enough morphine to stop an Ox but he is still in a lot of pain. Even with the SUV we couldn't get him back to the Hub without sending him into shock and in all likelihood killing him, compounding the problem."

"You know the bedside manner could do with a little work." Said Ianto quietly, "What are you going to do?"

"We should call an ambulance, stabilise the patient, get him straight to an operating theatre and with a team of around 15 to 20 highly trained people spend round 15 hours carefully dissecting each fibre and then a round the clock team of nurses to look after him in ITU for three days."

"What do you mean should?" asked Ianto quietly

"It's too dangerous to get anyone else involved." She brushed a stray hair from Jacks head. Ianto looked directly at her, she felt really uncomfortable stating the obvious truth even though they all knew it.

"He deserves the same treatment as everyone else." The voice was dangerously low.

Jack reached up a hand to lay on Iantos arm.

"She's right." He said wearily

"I could call Martha, we could retcon the hospital staff, there has to be something." Said Ianto petulantly

"Martha's in New York." Said Jack

"We can't retcon a whole hospital." She pulled her hand across her eyes in tiredness.

"You have to do something."

"I trust you." Said Jack with increasing difficulty.

Jenny huffed out a breath, in her heart she know there was only one option, but it wasn't an easy one. She took a second or two to think.

"Can you do it?" asked Ianto

"It won't be easy and I'm going need your help." She moved her gaze from Ianto, who nodded slightly to Jack and looked directly into his bloodshot eyes. "I can't promise you what will happen, I don't think there is a precedent for half man - half t-shirt." She took his hand "You will have to be awake, I can't control an anaesthetic by myself but I can try to block the nerve but without imaging equipment I can't guarantee the result. The room isn't the best environment, it isn't exactly sterile and the bed moves a little too much, I'll need to get some extra equipment so you will have to wait another hour or so but I am willing to try my best, it's up to you." She couldn't look at either of them, she was offering Hobsons choice. Damned if she did…

"Just do what you can." Said Jack looking directly at her "I trust you"

"Owen left some equipment here, we couldn't use the Hub once and he'd been shot, he had to go to A&E so he dotted stuff around in our houses." Jenny just raised an eyebrow, that would have been useful information an hour ago. Ianto rose, he kissed Jack lightly on the forehead and ghosted out of the room, truth be known he had forgotten about the sliver case in his spare room. Hadn't really mattered in the last few months as they had no doctor to use it, both he and Gwen had ended up in St Helens for a knock to the head they had been taught to deal with the more minor bites, cuts, scratches and burns they did themselves. Thank god they had listened to Owens post hangover lectures on sutures and various injectable substances.

As he came back down the hall he could hear Jenny's voice raised ever so slightly. As he kicked the door open gently the conversation stopped and she looked round with a fleeting guiltily look. She opened the case and found it had everything she needed, Owen had planned for an apocalypse, pity he couldn't plan to save himself, Death by Torchwood.

"I'm going to clean myself up, couple of minutes Ianto." She said looking back at the pair, she might well have said nothing they were so engrossed in each other, she hoped Ianto left the coffee somewhere obvious – this was going to be a long night.


	5. A hard night

First light was just touching the curtains of Ianto's bedroom as Jenny tied off the last stitch in Jacks shoulder. Ianto was quietly talking to Jack, telling him all about the dawn chorus chattering outside, Jenny didn't have the heart to tell him that he had been unconscious for the last twenty minutes. It had been a night unlike any other she could remember and not one she would care to repeat. She had been a medic in A&E for the best part of 30 years and had some serious stints in general surgery but she had never been forced to hack out cloth that had become part of the fabric of a man's flesh. At first she had tried to tease each fibre out strand by strand but that only worked for the weft that was pointing out of the skin, the warp required something a little more creative to ensure every strand was gone. She had agreed with Ianto and to some extent a sedated Jack that there was no need to worry about the aesthetics of scaring because it would all reset the next time he found him dead and knowing Jack that wouldn't be far away.

He had managed to stave off unconsciousness much longer that your average human but she suspected it was volumetric shock that had finally sent him into the abyss. She cleared away the sodden sterile drape which had acted more to anonymise the flesh underneath than remove a source of infection, it had covered Jacks face even as he turned away from her to look at Ianto. He was pale, his breathing was shallow and his skin was clammy, Ianto was carefully pulling his fringe into shape.

"Will he be alright?" he asked quietly

"In all honesty Ianto he doesn't have the best chance here but lets give it our best shot." Impulsively she snapped off her left glove and put it over the one that Ianto was using to hold Jacks hand, she felt him tense then relax, he smiled a sad little smile that showed too much emotion for such a young man. "Get some hot water and some clean sheets and I'll teach you the ancient and mystical art of the bed bath."

"Jack will be pissed he was unconscious for this one." Said Ianto dryly as he uncrunched from the position he had been in for the last few hours. He noted gratefully that Jenny was picking up all the detritus she had dropped during the course of the surgery, he should stop comparing her to Owen, but it was still too raw. He dropped a chased kiss on Jacks burning forehead and left to gather the supplies they now needed.

Jack looked strangely serene in the middle of the bed, laid clinically straight, arms on top of the light coloured duvet, somehow the red silk seemed inappropriate now. There was a stark contrast between the expertly bandaged left shoulder, white and clean and the red, feverish flush of the other one as it poked out the top of the covering. The bin bags had seemed like a crackpot idea when she had first told him what to do but now as they had been reused to contain the sweat and blood soaked sheets and towels he bowed to her greater intelligence. Jenny was checking through the rest of the med kit Owen had so thoughtfully made up all those many months ago, he must have been preparing for Armageddon it was a field hospital in a box, she half expected a pop up operating table and lighting rig at the bottom of one of the trays.

"I take it Owen had a low pain threshold?" she asked to try and lighten the room

"There wasn't much love lost at first between us but he really took pride in getting his job right, he hated pain he really did." His voice trailed off at the thought of Owen having to watch his own body disintegrate before his very eyes. He'd listened to their last conversation recorded like everything else in the Hub they had hoped it would tell them that Owen had been somewhere else but it wasn't to be, Ianto could feel the tears welling up as Jenny flourished another bottle and syringe to be added to the cocktail dripping into Jack.

"I'll go and put these in the washer before the blood dries."

After ensuring that Jack was as comfortable as he could be in the circumstances Jenny stole out of the bedroom and followed Ianto into the kitchen where he was holding a soaking towel at arms length trying to get it into the front loader without dripping on the floor.

"Any chance of some of your wonderful coffee?" she said quietly from the doorway.

Ianto snapped round startled

"Who's with Jack?" he asked then felt stupid as they were the only people in the house. He twisted the dial with menace and stabbed the on button "I'll go back in there."

Jenny put a hand on his arm as he went to pass and stopped him

"He'll be fine for two minutes Ianto, how are you?" She looked deep into his eyes and it was all it took for him to break.

She held open her arms and he rested his head on her shoulder. She rubbed his back for a minute or two while he calmed himself.

"Sorry." He mumbled wiping what was actually now a blood stained corner of his t-shirt across his eyes. "I do worry you know, one day his luck might just run out, he is only human after all." She raised an eyebrow and Ianto quickly realised his mistake, "Not that being a non human species is bad, some of the time." She looked at him again and he turned away to flick the switch on the kettle in the hope of hiding his blooming blush.

"I don't think alienism is covered under the statue book yet, hey who am I going to complain to, the United Union of Extra Terrestials, they're all too busy phoning home." She smiled at him as he started to rifle the cupboards, sniffing loudly as the tears turned to a river of snot, she handed him a piece of kitchen towel from a roll stored neatly in a corner.

"When was the last time you slept Ianto? And I mean in a bed not snatched moments with your head on desk."

He spooned the ground coffee in to the filter and sighed.

"Two, perhaps three days, though I did get a night on the Hub sofa before that, Jack said he didn't have the heart to wake me, got a crick in the neck where he left the dino flap open."

"Now there's a sentence you don't hear often." She said taking the spoon out of his stiff and tired fingers. "Go sit down Ianto Jones, you're no good to anyone in this state you need some rest too."

"I'll go sit with Jack." Said Ianto like an automaton.

"No you'll sit on the sofa for five minutes, doctors orders."

Ianto was in no state to argue and went to do as he was told, if she'd told him to stand naked in the street it doubted he would have had the mental resilience to ask why. Seconds later, or perhaps hours, she sat beside him and proffered a mug. He sniffed experimentally, he could smell coffee but it wasn't from this cup, sickly sweet and slightly malty he took a sip.

"Where the hell did you find Horlicks?" he asked taking another sip of the comforting drink.

"Bottom left under the three year old Bovril." Ianto sipped again. It was Lisas. She never could drink caffeine after about eight and go to sleep the same night.

Jenny patted his knee and stood again motioning for him to stay seated as she went back to Jack, it was a subtle ploy because she knew without the impetus of conversation and the small white pills in the bottom of the mug he would finally go to sleep. Even without everything that had happened to Jack she was worried about Ianto, he seemed to take everything to heart and the archive medical data that the Hub computer had recorded would have put a lot of people in heart attack territory. She had checked the data twice because the amount of time it showed Ianto as awake, running round and generally taking care of everyone else looked like it had to be the effort of two people, but of course it wasn't. Had the Jack thing not happened she was going to take the boss aside and insist he took at least a week off. Now she realised she should be happy with eight hours of sleep and hope that the Rift was quiet for a few days.

She went quietly back to the bedroom and checked Jack was comfortable, checked her watch and then went out onto the landing to find the airing cupboard. After a false start which turned out to be the smallest second bedroom in the world she found a blanket and pulled a pillow from the bed. Going back to the living room she smiled when she saw Ianto, chin resting on his chest and the mug, empty, dangling at a precarious angle. She took the china away and gently tipped him so he was laid comfortably, though the arms of the chair got in the way as she lifted his long legs. He still looked stressed, how a man asleep could be so tense she did not know, she would be recommending a few massage sessions to de-knot those shoulders. She ran her fingers across his stubble, pity he was taken at least she knew he would cope with the age difference. Turning the light off she went back to Jack, closing the bedroom door behind her.

She stood with her back against the door just watching the rise and fall of Jacks chest in the half light of sunrise. He was in a bad way and she would have liked to see him hooked up to every machine known to the NHS, she went and sat on the bed taking his left hand and holding it in her hands, it was cold and clammy. She rested her palm on his forehead and then took the face cloth and wiped away the thin sheen of sweat, there was no reaction to the touch. She took a deep breath in and blew out through her nose as she came to her final decision.

Carefully she unwrapped his shoulder and placed the bloody bandage in a yellow sack before fishing out a metallic kidney dish and a new scalpel and started removing the stitches she had carefully inserted about an hour before. Finishing that gruesome task she moved round to the other side of the bed and removed the canula in his hand before stepping back and rubbing her eyes, she couldn't believe she was about to do this. She took his pulse for one last time and nodded to herself. She carefully lifted his head and removed the first pillow and settled him down,

"I know this is what we agreed Jack but I'm still sorry" she said kissing her finger tips and placing them on his white lips. Then she took the pillow and placed in over his face, she had no idea how much pressure to apply or how long this would take. Murder wasn't something she had tried before.


	6. Breaking up and making up

Sorry I'm evil, did you think I wasn't bothering? Sort of lost my mojo, CoE and all that, plus builder hell back at the ranch, just do me a favour and never buy from Bellway – save yourself the hassle.

Anyway hope this goes in the right direction, there is more to come, lets just hope I can crack it a little quicker next time.

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Jenny paced round the bedroom, stopped, felt for the pulse that wasn't there and then started pacing again. Cardiff was coming to life outside, the milk float had clattered past and there was a rise in the car traffic down the narrow road. She peaked out of the curtains to see the gentle rising sun over the houses, there was a little mist coming off the sea but it didn't really register as she turned back and touched Jacks cooling neck again. She sat heavily on the corner of the bed and put her head in her hands, she knew it was a bad idea when he had asked her to do this. He had stopped her when Ianto had gone out the room and begged her with the little strength he had left to help him without telling Ianto because he knew how much it would hurt him. It had seemed so simple at the time, pillow over the face, a couple of minutes and Jack would be right as rain. For the first few minutes it had been fascinating watching as the skin seemed to zip up but now nothing seemed to be happening and she was regretting her decision. She was mentally rehearsing what to say to Ianto and ticking through the options for running away, but she knew Ianto would hunt her to the end of the earth. She put her head in her hands, scrubbed at her hair which was starting to go lank and then checked her watch, she was still safe from Ianto waking up for an hour or two.

Jenny couldn't tell you what the order was but suddenly the bed dipped as Jack sat bolt upright and there was a desperate wheezing as Jack suddenly needed oxygen again, Jenny turned and had to grab his windmilling arms before she ended up with a bloody nose. His head was turning desperately to find out where he was before he crashed back into the mattress, most of his energy spent.

"Jack." She shouted in the clinical tone calculated to cut through the brain fog patients experienced when they were in the throws of dieing, or Jacks case living. "Jack, calm down, Jack you're in Ianto's bedroom, in Ianto's bed even."

His mouth was flapping like a floundering fish, Jenny put one hand on his previously uninjured shoulder to keep him still while she took his pulse with the other. While it wasn't brilliant it was certainly much better than when she had first come back to the bedroom, he was nearer pink than grey and certainly making more noise than before and in medicine noise normally meant at least alive.

"Jack, how do you feel?"

He gulped a little air and looked all round her face as if to confirm who was talking to him. "Fine, I'm fine." He said finally focusing on her face

"Good" she said then slapped him hard.

"What was that for?!" cried Jack indignantly at the back of her head.

"Don't ever ask me to do that again." He was sure he heard her muttering 'bastard' under her breath as she moved further down the bed.

"Why it's hardly like it's permanent and it just speeds things up a bit."

She turned back to look him narrowing her eyes in a withering look that was more likely to kill him than any pillow.

"Do you have any idea how it feels to sit here waiting in the same room as a man you've murdered? Have you any idea of the hellish thoughts that I've had running round my head while I sat here?"

"Hey you must have an active imagination if you can get much thinking done in a couple of minutes." He flashed his normal cheesy grin and reached over to stroke his previously injured shoulder. "Nice job by the way, I can hardly feel it now."

"A couple of minutes, a couple of minutes! It's been three hours Jack, the kids have gone to school, people are working in their banks and offices now. I was about to go and confess everything to Ianto and face the music."

"Where is Ianto?" asked Jack quietly, "How is he?"

"In the living room, asleep, very asleep."

It went silent again, she was going to make him work very hard for forgiveness.

"I did notice he was tired, but there was never a moment to stop." He paused but there was still silence. "I should have made time."

Jenny just took a noisy, deep breath through her nose and Jack looked up to see her shoulders shaking. Jack slowly sat up and pulled his legs out from under the duvet, thankful that someone had dressed him in a pair of old tracksuit trousers not leaving him in his normal birthday suit.

"Hey it worked out fine in the end." He said putting his hand round her shoulder and rubbing, he wasn't surprised when she shrugged him off, she turned to him with red rimmed eyes.

"It isn't the easy option for me either." He rubbed his aching temples to try and calm the bass drum in his head. She harrumphed and shifted slightly further away. Somehow Jack could hear Ianto's voice going through his head, it started off as a gentle ribbing about his advanced years and lack of understanding and was quickly morphing into their last argument which had started after another death and ended up with Ianto threatening to walk out of Torchwood and never look back. Of course Jack had finally remembered that if he sounded contrite enough it would end up with some violent making up and if he was lucky Ianto would only stay upset with him for a few days. However Ianto had made him remember his promise in the morning and had made him sign a piece of paper warning of the dire consequences if he threw away his life because it was an easier option than fighting or seemed to be the quick option. Jack had been surprised how much he had kept to that promise, he was deeply moved by how much Ianto felt for him and had said the words that Ianto wanted to hear second most in the world.

"Sorry." He said finally remembering the impact that had finally had on Ianto and he was profoundly affected by the way deep down in what he thought was probably his soul he did feel contrite. Jenny looked sideways at him, trying to process what he had said, Jack rubbed away the tracks of tears running down her cheeks.

"What does it feel like?" she asked

"You don't want to know" he tried the arm round the shoulder and it wasn't pushed away this time, "And I hope it's a long time till you find out, I've only just found you and I don't need to loose you again."

She sniffed quite loudly and Jack reached over for the box of tissues on Iantos bedside table, the movement made his head spin and he thought he hid it quite well but the look on her face after she had nosily blown her nose said other wise. She unclipped the pen torch from her collar and made to wave it about in his face, Jack hated that bit and was about to bat her hands when the PDA in her pocket started to squeal.

"Such perfect timing, I must thank the Rift when I see it next." Said Jack as Jenny scrambled round in the tight back pocket of her impeccably tailored jeans, bad head or no Jack really enjoyed that view. "Say what do you buy a tear in the fabric of space and time to say cheers?"

Jenny gave him a snide sideways look and tapped various bits of the screen, rolled her eyes, tapped a bit more and turned the screen to show Jack.

"What is it?" he asked squinting, he wasn't going to tell her but the light was hurting his eyes.

"Large carboniferous deposit just dumped through the Rift near the University, at a guess a burnt tree trunk."

"Can you handle it?" asked Jack.

"It hasn't moved in seven minutes so I am guessing were not talking about Audrey. I'm sure I can contain a heap of barbeque fuel." She stood straightening herself and turned round. "You going to be ok?' She asked quietly as she pulled a few bits left round the room into her pockets.

"Uh huh." He said, "Owen used to have some really good tablets…" the statement was left hanging as Jenny squatted next to the medical caddy once thoughtfully put together by the snarky Torchwood medic. She riffled through the second drawer and pulled put an orange tub of tablets.

"Read the label." She said throwing it to him. "I'll try and get back before Ianto wakes up but only so I can watch him kill you all over again."

Jack shook the container and smiled a wane version of his normal smile as she left the room, she padded downstairs and he waited for the door to close. It was only after he heard the purr of the bike engine that he realised not everyone slammed the door through it's frame. He let his body fall backwards and threw two of the tablets down his neck swallowing dryly too late remembering the nasty after taste without water.

Three hours later Jenny let herself back into Iantos quiet little home and was assaulted with the marvellous smell of cooking bacon. It should have been the pick me up she needed, especially when coupled with the sight of Jack naked from the waist up. She couldn't stifle the yawn though as she closed the door silently with a flat hand on the frame.

"You must be feeling better" she said making one last visual check, for medical research she told herself.

"Never better, should try that sleep thing more often." He said waggling a floury white bap at her, only Jack could make a bread bun seductive.

"How's Ianto?" she said her mind whirring away on so many other things Jack could almost hear the ideas slotting into place. He used the spatula to point at the living room where she had left him in at dawn, she closed her eyes and then snapped them open as she felt her head droop forward. She lurched forward to look through the door and came back a few seconds later.

"He's waking up, if he doesn't strangle himself in the duvet first." She paused a second "You should be the first person he sees, I don't fancy giving this explanation."

"You mean if he kills me I'll recover." He said grinning with a cup of coffee in his hand, he passed it to her "Say, when was the last time you slept?"

"Peru"

"Didn't I employ you so we could all sleep a little more?" he asked slicing the bun with a rather large knife.

"Yes but the rift deposit was quite interesting, high probability of an earth origin, but high readings of chronon particles."

"Well it is a rift in space as well as time, did you get enough for a cook out?"

"I was thinking of the more scientific angle here, I've set the data base looking to see if I can get a match on a date and where it was planted, see if we can't find out where we have a rift opening. I hear Cardiff University has a brilliant dendrochronology department, strangely in the building next to where I found it."

"Do the other samples match?" he asked buttering the roll.

"How do you know I checked the other samples?"

"I know how your mind works." He said ladling the bacon into the bun reverently

"I got Gwen looking for them in achieves, she'll run them when her heart rate has returned to normal. Really Jack, you need to talk to your team occasionally, she nearly had a heart attack

when she saw me sat there."

"Yes Jack, you really should talk to your team." The voice came from the doorway, gravely through sleep. Jack whipped round so fast he dropped the bacon butty he was holding on to the counter, only a quick move from Jenny stopped it dropping into the sink.

"Hey Yan, how you feeling?" asked Jack breezily

"Not as good as you, obviously, but better now I've had a good sleep, thank you." He said looking pointedly at Jenny. She tried to sidle out but Ianto was still in the doorway, this really was something she didn't want to be caught up in.

"Look I better go and see if Gwen managed to get the samples in the analyser, then I'm going for a long shower and to bed. As you said Jack long time since Peru."

Ianto pushed himself away from the doorjamb with his shoulder so she would only just be able to squeeze past.

"Did he ask you or did you suggest it?" he asked as she tried to get past without touching him.

"Don't ask the lady loaded questions Ianto, this one's between us."

Ianto's eyes darkened and he stepped forward into the room giving Jenny free passage, she scampered quickly into the hall and got the hell out of Dodge as quickly as possible, munching on the bacon sarnie in her hand she pulled the door shut as she heard crockery breaking. Sat on the leather seat of her bike she wondered if she should go back in, but then she remembered the best thing about an argument was making up again.


	7. Drop it

"Talk trees to me" Shouted Jack as he swept through the cog door.

"Hello Jack, Swansea was lovely, yes I had a wonderful time" She paused for breath as if she was being asked a question. "Brenda says hello too." She put the pencil she had been twiddling down on the table and twizzed round in her chair like a small child.

"He has conquests in Swansea now?" Asked Jenny who had been tapping away on Toshs' old computer.

"No it's the mother in law, Jack one tried to kill her because he thought she was an alien." She twirled back again, "didn't manage it, obviously." Jenny was sure she heard the word, Pity, swirl round from both of them.

Jenny nodded, she had seen the photo of her in the Williams lounge last visit and could sense the vibes the woman gave off even in 2-D. They both pointedly ignored Jacks request and got on with their own work.

"Have we got a Triffid living in Cardiff or can I put the Weedol away for today?" Said Jack slowly and pointedly as if addressing small children.

"Triffids were plants, not trees, anyone with half an ounce of sense can tell the difference between a soft fleshy plant and a hard woody tree trunk, and that" he said pointing at the autopsy table, "just gave me splinters." Said Ianto placing a cup of coffee on each of the desks and taking his own to his work station, ignoring Jacks outstretched hand, he was even using one of Jacks mugs to make his point even more valid.

"Triffid, tree, fucking waterlily on steroids do we have an alien problem here?" he said hands on hips and a snarl on his face.

Jenny hit a few keys and the images on the wall behind them threw up a few pictures of trees. She used the laser pointer on the end of her pen and started speaking.

"Analysis shows that the organic matter found today and over the last," she paused while she flicked though the report in the desk.

"Approximately three weeks." Said Ianto

"Three weeks, belongs to _Ulmus procera_." She waited till someone cracked, Gwen already knew and Ianto was going to make Jack squirm.

He clicked his teeth impatiently and fixed her with a stare but as he caught the glint in her eye he knew he was about to get into a pissing contest that he could very well loose.

"So what's so special about ulnar protzoa?" he asked, taking a chair and swinging it round so he could sit facing the others.

"_Ulmus procera _better known as the English Elm." A picture of the Haywain flashed up "Not seen round these here parts for the better part of fifty years." Intoned Ianto in his own special all knowing voice. "Dutch Elm disease."

"So what? Some farmer mucking round in his barn drags out an old stump and sets fire to it to take out a vendetta on someone, I prefer the idea of spraying muck across the building personally but each to his own." Jack stood up, he had obviously decided that this problem no longer required his curiosity, but Jenny carried on,

"The bark that was left was still living and one of the branches I found today, and dragged back here myself while you stayed indoors, had leaves. They are from recently deceased Elm trees, possibly not deceased till they gathered large amounts of chronon energy from being flung through the rift, there by re-using this energy to self-combust."  
"So situation normal then, we live on a rift in space people, get over it."

Jenny stood up and placed her hands on her hips in the mirror of Jacks pose of earlier, she was going to finish her point, Jack was starting to regret bringing her back. He turned with the same slightly lopsided grin that he had given Ianto earlier when he wanted his own way, but this time it didn't reach his eyes.

"This isn't about space this is about time, the dendrochonolgy is suggesting a last known year that these trees were alive is late 18th century, that isn't normal rift activity."

Jack sat down again, now she had his attention, why couldn't she have just said that in the first place?

"Lets talk about this somewhere more comfortable, board room five minutes. Ianto a little bit of coffee magic would really be helpful now." He paused a second "Please Ianto."

Ianto placed a small cracked cup of instant down in front of Jack, it was better than the last argument to end all arguments, he hadn't seen any sort of drink in three days and his office had turned into a complete tip. He noticed the quick smile that passed over Jennys lips. Ianto had stormed out not long after her, throwing some choice words Jacks way. Jack had stayed to tidy up, he didn't need any reason for Ianto to be angry when he came back that evening, he fully intended to make up for all his wrongs that night. However as he thought of all the remarks Ianto had spit at him he got quite angry, why the hell should he go through days of pain recovering like any normal human, his brain had weighed up his real pain and suffering with Iantos mental anguish, that would last approximately three minutes till he came back round and started throwing things round again. He pulled the sheets off the bed and recalled the original argument, that had lasted the best part of a week and he had felt backed into a corner about the whole not using death as a get out of jail free thing. He ended up whining about the Doctor and the whole fixed point thing, which of course had reminded Ianto all about his rival and well off down another rabbit hole, so that was how a week later, tired, stressed and grouchy he had agreed to Iantos demands and he had called in the cavalry, now sat opposite him still playing the keyboard like a pro. He pondered what he would have to promise this time to get his privileges back and took a sip of the dish water like brew, it didn't even have any sugar in it, belatedly realising that there were three pairs of eyes staring at him.

"So the Rift is throwing trees at us, any ideas why?" he asked sipping his punishment.

"Some one or something messing with the Rift?" suggested Gwen

Some where in the ether Ianto was sure he heard Owens voice muttering "No shit Sherlock".

"I've checked the archives and haven't found any similar incidents." Said Ianto

"I'm trying to trace the energy at the moment and coming up with a blank, bit like a small black hole no energy what so ever in or around the vicinity, then wham a burst of chronon and a lots heat." Said Jenny bringing up many and varied graphs.

"Have you tried negative energy?" Asked Gwen. "We had this case of missing people last year and…"

Jack held up a hand and cut her off, they had agreed never to speak of that incident again.

"Interesting theory, I'll see if I can configure the programme to check. I think they are all coming from the same time and place so I need to do a background check see if anything correlates at about the same time."

"I'll do that." Said Ianto

"I'll see if there are any associated incidents." Said Gwen

"Quick question here." Said Jack seeing the look of determination on Jenny's face "Has anyone died?" She shook her head, "Any severe and irreparable property damage?" She flicked up a photo of the smouldering tree stump and the slightly melted asphalt, he put up his hand before she could open her mouth, "Any portal opening into a world of man eating aliens?" Sensibly they all stayed quiet as Jack ranted on "No, Good, Close it down."

There was a seconds silence then Jenny said "What?"

Jack slapped the palms of his hands down on the table "I said shut it down. We have better things to do at the moment." The rest of his team looked sullen and he sat back with his arms folded. He thought back to the time when they all just did what he asked, no questions, so much easier.

"Gwen, how many weevil sightings this month?"

"Seventeen, you know that Jack."

"How many last month?"

"Four."

"So what's changed?"

"I don't know Jack what has changed?" she asked slowly

"Exactly, find out." he turned his attention to Ianto without a second glance, "So what's in room 101 chief archivist?"

"I don't know Jack I only found out about it when I was trying to stop you bleeding to death, again."

"Well find out Ianto." Replied Jack condescendingly "And just how far have you got through the autopsy backlog?"

"Well after re-arranging your diary, trying to find where Owen left the code and then, oh I don't know – Saving Your Sorry Hide – Nowhere."

"So how do you know there aren't any earth shattering alien pathogens hiding in the cryo chambers? Sort it."

The room was icy cold, as three pairs of steely eyes pierced him.

"What exactly have you got to do?" asked Gwen in her silky smooth irony laden voice.

"Ianto." He replied chirpily.

The temperature dropped another 20 degrees, Ianto cleared his throat and pushed his chair back, straightening his trousers as he stood.

"You think?" He straightened his tie and turned for the door. "I'll be in the archives if you want me, Jenny if you have a minute to spare in-between your heavy schedule of autopsies could you show me how you got in to the far rooms I would be most grateful." He smiled weakly at her and she nodded as he swept out of the room.

Jack sat staring at the closing door.

"So" said Gwen sharply and looked directly at Jack

"So what?" asked Jack

"So are you just going to sit there?" Jenny felt rather uncomfortable but had the feeling this was something that had played out all too often in the last few stressful weeks.

"Ianto works for Torchwood, I'm the boss of Torchwood, I give the orders and he follows them. Like you should." He added sarcastically.

"You crossed the line there Jack and you really need to apologise, he gets really self conscious when you act like that."

Jenny watched the pair of them squaring up for an almighty slanging match.

"Fine I'll just keep it on a watching brief till I have spare time, wiz through the backlog of the ungrateful dead, do that computer patch and I'll have a look this evening."

"What part of no do you not understand?" Asked Jack blanking Gwen "Drop it we don't have time."

"Fine I'll do it at the weekend, I'd just like to find out what's caused it, might be useful later on."

"No." said Jack with a whine in his voice that said he was sick of repeating himself, "Just loose it will ya, if it happens again I'll pass it over to UNIT."

"What and let them on our patch?" said Gwen very surprised

"Look the last 24 hours has given me a little time to reflect, I'm going to loose one of you through exhaustion or some stupid move you make when you're tired if we don't prioritise." He reached over and grab a hand from each of them. "I'm being selfish I can't face loosing any more of you." Gwen placed her spare hand over his and rubbed while Jenny sat squirming slightly at the unaccustomed contact. "And you did promise me after Flatholme." He said quietly fixing Gwen directly in the eye.

Gwens face turned into a coy smile and she turned her doe eyes onto Jack.

"Of course Sweetheart, I should have learnt my lesson about extra curricular activities then." She broke the contact by pushing her chair back and caught Jenny's raised eyebrow of surprise but said nothing. She would explain later, "So Weevil patterns eh? Better get on." Jenny made to follow her, she wanted to know why she could sense that Gwen was being completely false, but she was good it would have taken someone with psychic abilities like hers to sense it, she wondered if Jack had picked it up. She pushed her chair back but Jack didn't let go of her hand and she was forced to sit down again.

"I don't know why this is so unimportant Jack but as it seems to mean so much to you I'll drop it. Now if you don't mind I apparently have a whole massacre of bodies in the morgue to defrost and slice up."

"I thought you were going to get some rest." He looked at his watch "By my reckoning you must be over 48 hours without sleep."

"Hotels aren't very conducive to sleeping during the day, the maid, maintenance, other guests."

"Figured as much. Might have a solution for you, come to my office in about ten minutes." He stood taking a deep breath through his nose, "First I have some apologising to do." He stuffed his hands deep in his pockets and walked stiffly towards the door.

"You sure ten minutes are enough?"

"I was that bad?" he asked quietly.

"See you in half an hour Jack, or perhaps an hour."


	8. Men are easy to predict

Jenny had the music on loudly in the autopsy bay; something Owen used to do thought Gwen, then mentally shook herself because she had to stop making comparisons. She sauntered over to the rail and stood close to the steps, swinging like a kid after ballet class.

"So" she drew out the vowel, "What did you think of that?"

Jenny turned down the music but not enough so their voices could easily be picked out on the CCTV, few hours with Tosh's software and you could make a pin drop out over a jet engine but it should fox Jack enough that he wouldn't bother.

"Bit over the top" she replied cautiously, she still didn't have the measure of Gwen, some days she seemed to go running to Jack with everything other days he was the Devil incarnate and today could be either.

"Bloody stupid if you ask me, pig headed and I think he's wrong." It was a devil day then.

"What was the Flatholme thing? Is that what made him so mad?" Said Jenny testing the edge of one of the big saws with the edge of her finger.

"I found out one of his little secrets and he didn't like it" she said indignantly and walked down the steps, "but we promised never to talk about it again."

Jenny looked round from the green scaly thing she was pulling out of the cryo storage lift.

"Spent sometime locked up there, before they decided what to do with me. Used to be a correctional facility, quite surprised to find out it was still there." She looked down at the thing in front of her. "Cause of death fairly easy then." The bullet hole in the temple gave it away, "One of Jacks?" she asked due to the precise nature of the hole.

"No Ianto actually, getting quite good." she paused slightly, "Must be all the extra tuition." She said sniffily.

Jenny nodded and gently nudged Gwen out of the way as she spun the gurney round to get the thing on the table.

"So are you going to drop the investigation then?"

"Jack told me to."

"And do you listen to Jack?"

"Do you?"

"Fancy going to the pub tonight, Jack is going to cook him dinner tonight and won't want him under his feet for an hour or so."

"How do you know what Jack is going to do?"

"I told Jack it would get into his good books, even after a few millennia they always defer to female intuition."

"Clever manoeuvre there, Jack cooking – should be good for a few hours."

"Might just stay for one."

Gwen nodded and went back up to the main part of the Hub, it was about to get messy and she didn't need alien guts on her new boots, she was pleased with her attempt at subterfuge, perhaps they could use semaphore next time.

Jack took the better part of an hour before he surfaced from the archives, five minutes later Ianto arrived with a mug of coffee that could have been made by the gods themselves, things must have gone well. Jack called Jenny up to his office a few minutes later.

"Thanks for the tip, your further assistance would be gratefully accepted." he said as she smoothly slid into the chair.

"How long does it take you to microwave a lasagne?"

Jack chuckled "Contrary to popular belief, where I come from the men can cook too you know. I thought a nice pate, a steak with a mango salad and fondant for dessert."

"Ok Master Chef, how long do you need, I take it you want a relaxed Ianto but still able to do his erm, manly duties?"

"As if you read my mind." He smirked, "Listen there's a lovely new place up behind St Davids, take Gwen too, check the place out, enjoy yourselves." He slid a wodge of notes across the desk.

"You mean the little wine bar that has had three rift alerts with no discernable activity in the past week?"

"No such thing as a free ride." He chuckled and then sat back, steepling his fingers, something he always did when he was tense.

"You wanted to see me, earlier, before you needed help seducing a boy young enough to be your great grandchild."

"And some, but hey don't I age well?" He smiled his own sad smile and impulsively she lent over and rubbed his hand, it didn't need words.

The contact broke his reverie and he used his free hand to reach into his desk drawer pulling a set of keys out and twirling them round his finger.

"I've lived in a few hotels and it's not something I would recommend long term." He placed the keys on the desk. "I've had these a while and didn't know what to do with them."

She lifted and eyebrow and picked them up.

"It was Owen's flat, he left it to me, because he didn't want it to belong to Torchwood but he did want it to be used to provide shelter for Torchwood employees. To be honest I was thinking of renting it out and putting the money into the Christmas party fund, but I don't know how many of us will be around to enjoy it at the rate I'm getting through people."

She put the keys down again, "Didn't he have any family?"

Jack shook his head, "Tosh did, whole massive family that she wasn't allowed much contact with, terms of the parole, but Owen made sure he severed all ties, not the best of childhoods. He wouldn't like to admit it but I think we became his family."

"Do the others know?" She asked quietly "I mean it might be a shock if they come round and find me living in his place."

"Ianto might, he seems to know everything I do, Gwen, well she never went round to the new place too much temptation." He said knowingly.

The silence filled the room, Jack could see the feelings passing through her head and thought about delving in to see what was actually happening, but then remembered she would be able to tell.

"Look it takes time to buy a place and you'll be as knackered as the rest of us by the time it all goes through if you stay in the hotel, plus they're gonna ask questions when you start coming in at all hours covered in purple puke."

"I'll take a look." She said shortly "But if I decide to stay I'll get somewhere of my own, a house, I can't be doing with loft style apartments too much noise not enough privacy."

Jack smiled his best smile and jumped up grabbing his coat from behind him, he ran onto the gantry and started shouting at Gwen about going out and looked back impatiently at Jenny as she followed behind at a more normal pace. Jack was back in charge and all was right with the world.

The wine bar, the originally named Bacchus, was cold and empty at 6:30 on a Tuesday night in late November. People were starting to save up for the Christmas binge and besides it was raining so people hadn't bothered coming out of their offices and shops to go to an over priced dank bar with pretentions above it's station. Ianto came back to the high table with steel bar stools by the door with three glasses on a plastic non slip tray and put them on the not overly clean table.

"From what I can see a little alien intervention possibly wouldn't go amiss in here, glad we checked it out now as it won't be open after Christmas." He said wiping the top of the stool with his hanky.

Jenny pulled her skirt a little further down to try and cover her legs from the draft whistling through the gap round the door and found herself jealous of the casual chic jeans Gwen was wearing. Gwen on the other hand has slowly deciding to hate Jenny for her perfect legs and smart appearance and the lack of wobble on those vertiginous heels. Jack had come back without Jenny and explained about her new residence and Gwen had started to protest until she realised that life moved on, and there was a shopping opportunity to be had because apart from a few sticks of furniture they had cleared the place inline with normal Torchwood procedure. Gwen loved buying bedding.

They all took a sip of the wine, the white was warm, Iantos red was on the turn and music was getting cheesy.

"Well at least we won't be overheard." Said Gwen pushing the glass into the middle of the table.

Jenny tapped on the hand held scanner which would have looked like a PDA to anyone passing, apart from the alien script on the strobing touch screen.

"Nothing happening at the moment, we can tell Jack this one can be closed down." Said Jenny snapping the cover shut.

"This wine isn't of earth origin." Ianto said pushing his glass away. "Don't close it yet, we can use it as cover."

Gwen smiled her childish smile "So what have you found out about the trees then?"

"I've matched the denrdrochronology with a possible source" said Ianto

Gwen waited a second for him to continue the sentence then followed Iantos gaze to the shapely rear of the tarty waitress bent over cleaning one of the tables on the other side of what she supposed was the dance floor. She snapped her fingers in front of his face and lifted an eyebrow.

"What? I'm allowed to window-shop, not as if Jack doesn't." He said with a slight pout.

"But a girl Ianto?" asked Gwen slightly incredulously

"Again it's not as if Jack doesn't. I can't explain it, it's not men it's just Jack." He ended up mumbling the sentence, Gwen started to smile she knew exactly what he meant, she only had eyes for Rhys, and Jack.

"Anyway, what did your research drag up then?" Said Jenny throwing a lifeline to the bright red younger man.

He fumbled in his bag for a few bits of paper, took a deep breath and laid an old fashioned map printout on the table, he rolled the sides out and they stuck to the table.

"Well the dating evidence suggests they all finished growing about 1804 to 1810 and they came from somewhere in South West Great Britain." He circled an area from about Gloucester to Exeter. "The computer has narrowed down the evidence a little more than the boffins and has pin pointed the wider Avon Valley and analysed some of the soot stuck on the bark and has an approximate 10 mile radius, slightly upwind of Bristol. From that I found a map drawn up in 1799 for a will and a boundary map for the disputed land six years later and there are four copses of trees that might have seemingly contained Elm tress of the right age and approximately 2 square miles I don't have the data on yet."

Gwen marvelled over the old maps, the familiar place names that now formed parts of Bristol had been separate villages.

"So we have a where, a why anyone?" asked Jenny, she didn't need to look at the map, she'd been around when the original had been made.

"The Rift didn't exist then." Said Gwen running a finger over the date and the fancy crest in the corner

"No the Rift has always existed, it just wasn't under Cardiff at that point or wasn't open anyway." said Jenny as if she was talking to a small child.

"So" said Ianto before Gwen pulled the Glock he knew she was toting in her handbag "Are we saying the Rift has moved or that there is a dormant rift under Keynsham?"

They all took another sip of the insipid wine and pulled a face before putting it back as far out of reach as possible.

"Guess I'll set Bessie rolling on it then." Said Jenny.

"Who's Bessie?" asked Gwen, suddenly thinking she was being kept out of the loop on another hire.

"The computer." Said Jenny as if it was obvious.

"The computer has a name?" Asked Ianto

"Did you ever ask it?" replied Jenny patiently

Ianto and Gwen looked at each other to see if it had occurred to the other that the bundle of hardware and chips could have an opinion on the subject of naming conventions.

"I did tell you it was semi-sentient." She continued rolling her eyes "That was why I had picked though the back of the archives, lucky she hasn't learnt to use a key or she'd have expanded into the Hub proper."

"You mean taking over the world." Asked Gwen with a shiver

"Well possibly" said Jenny with a shudder as she realised what she had been suggesting. "She seems happy with an ISDN connection now, says that there is no one out there that would match her intellect that she wants to meet."

They all sat a minute or two, Gwen reached for the wine then thought better of it before breaking the silence

"Bit Terminator isn't it."

Ianto nodded "Just Torchwood really." They all nodded again and Iantos phone started ringing, saved by the bell.

Ianto turned away from the table in a hopeless attempt to be private.

"That was Jack." He said unnecessarily, the cutie tones that he had used would have given it away even if he had been speaking Esperanto.

"Well Rhys has been cooking too, so I should get back before his creation goes to waste."

"Microwave lasagne again?" asked Ianto solicitously.

"No, he's expanded into chilli with the slow cooker we were given for a wedding present, boil in the bag rice though."

They all stood up looking at the undrunk wine and deciding against it.

"Lift" Ianto asked Jenny as they walked out into the cold air.

"Oh love, you're on your own tonight, come back to ours, Rhys always makes enough for four and then eats it himself." Said Gwen putting a hand on her arm

Jenny resisted the urge to shake her off but smiled instead

"Oh things to sort out, you know, date with the internet, lots of shopping." She said breezily

"Well leave some shopping for me, we'll go to Cross Hands tomorrow shall we?"

Ianto rattled his keys, whatever the weather Gwen could be relied on to spend ten minutes yakking and freezing repeating the same old thing she had said in the Hub three hours before. Gwen got the message and hugged them both before skipping off, already on her phone to Rhys.

"You might want to cut Jack a little slack you know, I think it is all virgin territory for him too." Said Jenny as the SUV purred away down the road.

"Nothing's new to Jack." Said Ianto, indicating as a car screeched to a halt even though it was their right of way, they had obviously been on the wrong end of Jacks driving recently. Ianto waved them through then wondered if he had just set them up for a crash next Jack acted like he owned the road.

"I think it is, I don't think he has been as open with anyone that invades his life so completely before."

Ianto came to a stop outside Owens flat, sorry Jenny's place and turned the engine off so he could look at her.

"What do you mean invades? He's been married surely you couldn't get more invasive than that."

"I don't think he has ever been involved so deeply with someone at work, someone who knows his secrets, understands the death and Doctor thing. He wasn't so open about the immortality bit last time I knew of him, before he was forced into taking over at Three he could live a normal life, go home open the front door and be Jack the family man or Jack the office worker, I guess he crawled into a corner whenever he died, woke up, washed and came home to bangers and mash."

Ianto turned the console light on, which was puny considering the SUV had enough power to light up half of Wales if it so desired.

"Is that what he wants again do you think?"

"Who knows Ianto, ask him." She put a hand on his knee and smiled

"He keeps going on about not being able to cope with loosing anyone else, perhaps," he stopped and looked directly at her, "Perhaps I should walk away now, perhaps you would be better for him?"

"Whoooh." Said Jenny holding her hands up. "where'd that come from?" She looked at Ianto and then said quietly "Not a chance by the way."

"You know the old adage if you love someone set them free? I don't want to hurt Jack and some day I'll die and if I leave now he won't be as upset and…" Jenny put a finger across his lips,

"He won't let you go anyway, there isn't a place on this planet or most other planets he wouldn't find you. Look at Estelle, he left her because he couldn't let her in on his secret life but he followed her and when the time was right… Trust Jack, he's been around enough to do what he likes and like what he does." She pulled Ianto into a friendly embrace, "Besides do you think you could live with him for eternity?"

Ianto chuckled as she pulled away and opened the door. "Enjoy the moment Ianto, it's all we have."

"I'll try." He said smiling and thinking of all the enjoyable things he would be doing when he got home, he wondered if Jack's pudding would ever get eaten.

"Don't do anything I wouldn't." she said slamming the door.

He opened the window as she walked towards the entrance of the block. "Can't promise that!"


	9. Late nights in Cardiff

Sorry I don't know where this chapter came from, it wasn't supposed to happen but it wouldn't go away till I released it on the world. I'll try and get back on track next time, but hope you enjoy anyway.

…………………………

"I'll stay in the Hub, Jack can look after it on his own, I have some filing to do, you go home you deserve a rest." Parroted Jenny as she dragged Ianto back to the tailgate of the SUV with her shoulder none to gently wedged under his armpit.

"We, I enjoy going Weevil hunting with Jack, thrill of the chase."

"Seeing his backside through his trousers and the kick when the pair of you get when you get your weapons out more like." She said without a hint of sarcasm.

She lifted his injured leg with a sort of caring roughness of a medic too used to seeing carnage to be particularly bothered by it anymore. She used the high powered torch from her pocket to check out the injury to his calf,

"This isn't a Weevil bite." She said poking at the gaping flesh like he was some sort of alien specimen.

"Never said it was." Ianto grimaced as she lifted a particularly sensitive bit of flesh, "Slipped as I was going to use the Weevil spray and subdue it, got a grip of my trouser leg and started shredding the cloth, Jack got it between the eyes before it got further."

"What did you land on?" she asked ripping the fabric to his knee to see the full extent.

"A broken bottle I think, copious amounts of vomit and probably some rat dung."

"I would dump Jack if that's his idea of a good night out." She pulled out a heavy duty needle and speculatively squirted the air out of it. "Something for the pain, then I'll really check for damage."

Problem was she needed both hands to poke about with and she was never one for holding things with her teeth, too much chance to drool and that was never a good look. She turned round and snapped her fingers,

"Oi you." She shouted at the back of one of the police guarding the scene "Make yourself useful and shed some light on the situation."

Ianto groaned as the flat capped yellow jacketed man turned round,

"Bloody Torchwood, I do have a name, hi Ianto, Jesus man one of those bloody great big dog things again?"

"Hullo PC Andy." Said Ianto dully. Of all the PCs in all the world.

Jenny thrust the tiny torch into Andy's hand and turned it to illuminate the bottom of Ianto's leg.

"Another graduate of the Torchwood charm school I see, I'm PC Andy Davidson." He said semi sarcastically and with a small tinge of regret, he held out his hand, Jenny just held up a bloody gloved hand and twisted his hand till she had the beam of light onto Iantos calf again.

"More spooky doos?" he asked a bit louder.

"No simple slip in the wrong place." Said Ianto as he winced from Jennys prodding.

"Allergic to anything?" she asked ignoring Andy as he rocked back and forth in a very policeman like fashion, Ianto shook his head as she flicked at the plastic casing.

"Another one of those snappy brown ugly things was it?" Asked Andy again conversationally.

"No Andy it wasn't anything and even if it was I couldn't tell you could I? Classified remember?"

"So classified you drive round in the biggest car in Cardiff with your name emblazoned down the side, hardly secret now is it?" Andy was into one of his monologues. "I've seen them you know, fought them off, they were all over the police station and where were you then? Just me and that lump of lard married to Gwen, saving the world." The light had started to move back and forth so Jenny grabbed his hand to steady it again.

"Where is Gwen anyway?" The tone was very nearly an accusation and Ianto wasn't really in the mood especially as Jenny started to drizzle saline across his leg and soaking his sock and shoe.

"If she has any sense in bed with the lump of lard, it is two in the morning Andy."

Jenny stopped poking about and took the flashlight back from Andy.

"Thanks, I'll hire you as a standard lamp for my next party." She said obviously dismissing him. "I'm going to wrap it up and take a better look when we get back to base, might be something left in there, needs a few stitches."

Andy stayed where he was. "So how'd you get this job?"

"Know the right people." A black look clouded across Andy's face, Gwen knew he was looking for a way in, granted he wasn't a doctor but there was the other one, the computer one, he knew a bit about computers.

"Well I can tell by your accent you aren't from around these parts, so if you want a guided tour just give me a call, I'd be happy to oblige." There was more than one way to crack a nut.

"Thanks but Ianto already gave me the full tourist information lecture."

"You're not still using that sad little office as cover are you?" Said Andy with a steep rise in tone at the end of the sentence. "Besides what does he know about the real Cardiff , he's from Newport ."

Jenny helped Ianto sit up again and he hissed as he caught the bandage on the tail gate as he swung round, if he wasn't feeling just a little sick now the adrenaline was wearing off he would have been up for a slanging match on the relative merits of Cardiff and Newport, including a frank and open talk about the two rugby teams, but as it was he just glared.

There was an awkward silence as Jenny cleared the detritus of her work into various medicalised disposal bags, she swotted Ianto's hand away when he tried to clear up.

"Glad to see you're house trained, unlike the last one, always left the rubbish for one of us to clear up, you always leave the unsexy bits for us to clear up, like tonight, we set up the perimeter for you, shooed the drunks away and will be here half the night making sure it is safe for Joe Public to come back round. Just a simple thanks occasionally would do, take all the glory and none of the crap."

"We don't take any of the glory Andy, goes with the secret thing." Grumped Ianto

"Oh I suppose." Said Andy pensively.

He was just about to start another one of his expansive monologues when there was the unmistakable clomping of Jacks boots from the far side of the SUV, followed by a thump as a black zip up bag fell from his shoulder to the floor.

"If it wasn't dead before it will be now." He said prosaically.

"Ah PC Andy." Said Jack in his friendly voice. "Just the man, feel free to let your colleagues know they can clear up now."

"Bloody Torchwood, we're not just your clear-up service you know." He grumbled.

"Of course not." Said Jack clapping a hand down on his shoulder, "Did most of it myself tonight and you know we're always grateful for your assistance don't yah."

Amazing, thought Ianto twenty seconds and he wins the world over with charm and pheromones.

"Had to do it all myself tonight, didn't I my wounded soldier?" Ianto wasn't sure if it was concern or an accusation, knowing Jack it would be both.

"Are you finished here Jack? Just I'd like to do my job and get back to the nice warm bed I was dragged from before day break." Snapped Jenny as she helped Ianto into the back of the car.

"Sure, give a man a hand PC Andy?" he said picking up the head end of the ill disguised body bag.

Grumbling Andy lent down to help and was surprised by the weight, whatever was in there was more solid than your natural born human, the SUV dipped as they hefted it into the boot space – which was considerably smaller than it looked from the outside due to the super computer and all the ancillary equipment. Jack heard Ianto moan and at that moment the captain switched off and the lover switched on.

"Gotta go Andy, nice meeting you tonight, must do it again." Jack was already skipping round to the drivers door, throwing the lid on the boot as he went.

"That would be really good, I've been meaning to talk to you." Started Andy

"That would be great, call my secretary." Said Jack pulling the door too and starting the carbon neutral yet impressively loud engine. He quickly turned to drift his hand over Ianto's good leg before putting his foot down on the accelerator and tooling back to the Plass at his normal breakneck speed. Andy stood and cogitated a minute, his original thought of breakthrough suddenly turned to dust when he realised bloody Captain Bloody Jack Harkness didn't have a secretary and he didn't have any phone numbers anyway.

Ianto turned green as Jack smacked through the hologram that hid the garage and wretched heavily as he opened the door, even thought the SUV was still slightly in motion. He hadn't eaten for hours so there was little more than bile but he would have still been the one to clean up anyway. Jack didn't even notice, though he did wonder what was wrong when Jenny barrelled into his shoulder and just kept on walking as he swept round to retrieve the body bag. Jack effortlessly threw the body over his shoulder and started walking towards the small door, only pausing to check he could lock the SUV now. He saw Ianto and Jenny like they were wearing the perception filter keys he and Martha had worn all those months ago, he was in charge and he was still working, Ianto was walking – albeit with help – so he wasn't that bad.

Fifteen minutes later Jack padded back into the main Hub, the incinerator was getting cranky, it obviously needed a good clean to ensure the intake doors would shut without burning someone, though personally he could cope with that. He walked over to the autopsy bay and stood at the back of the raised area, his heart skipped a beat when he saw Ianto laid face down on the examination couch. His chin was propped up on his arms, his eyes closed to make his face look even more drawn and pale than it should be. A clinical pink basket-weave hospital blanket was carefully laid over him to cover his back and exposed legs, the shredded trousers rolled up in a heap on a trolley, Owen would have let him show his arse to the rest of the world his fascinating take on medicine was more about fixing the broken machine less about healing the soul. Jenny was poking round a nasty red wound made starker by the green sterile drapes she had placed round it. Jenny said something he couldn't make out and Ianto replied without opening his eyes, his head seemingly moving instead of his jaw, Jack decided to move forward.

"Looks nasty." He opinioned

"Shouldn't leave too much of a scar, few weeks and it should be fine, antibiotics just in case and I think Owen has some stuff marked to speed the healing process." She replied without looking up. Jack stayed on the bottom step.

"Will he be out of action for that long?"

"Rest of this week I'd recommend nothing strenuous, no running, lifting anything that would stretch the muscle but I want to look in a few days when the worse of the swelling has gone to give a full prognosis."

Jenny looked up and saw Jack nod, his face unmoving then as if a switch had been flicked he stepped onto the floor itself and went over to Ianto who opened his eyes like a kicked puppy. Jack ruffled his hair then crouched down to put his arms on the couch and rest his head in a mirror of Ianto, Jack was no longer leader of the team testing it strengths and weaknesses but a lover, concerned and hurting just as much as the other half of his life.

Ianto opened his eyes "That is truly creepy you know." He said in his favoured sardonic tone.

"Will you give a man a break?" asked Jack standing up and stroking Iantos cheek instead. "Do you need anything?" Ianto unconsciously moved his head like a cat trying to get an ear rub.

"I'm fine Jack, go to bed I'll be down when Jen has finished." The casual use of the shortened variant of her name caught Jack unaware, Ianto did not shorten names he was even surprised he didn't call her Jennifer every now and then.

"No, I'll stay here and we'll go together."

"Nothing strenuous remember." Said Jenny raising an eyebrow.

"I can do calm too." Said Jack, "But I also have a sense of time and place."

Jenny peeled away the drapes and gently cleaned away the excesses of iodine solution liberally coated over Iantos leg and the angry red slash looked even worse against the pale white skin, his little Celtic dragon needed a little sun. Mental checklist for places to send Ianto on holiday next year.

"He could do with a pair of loose kecks." Said Jenny, shaking the tin of spray skin she winked at Jack and he instantly understood what was about to happen. This stuff was brilliant and evil at the same time, it bonded the skin in away that human science couldn't match for another 250 years but because it was meant for creatures who lived in a sodium rich atmosphere it stung, like a box jellyfish. It was a treatment you know you should accept but in truth after the first time your brain couldn't take the hit.

Jack collapsed down over Ianto's back whispering in his ear about how he would get him out of those trousers again, Ianto was about to protest at the weight across his back when he felt it. The momentary cold of any aerosol and then the burning white poker heat of the spray skin bonding the ripped flesh together. Torchwood held many items that could benefit mankind but this wasn't something you could easily let lose on the world. He screamed and then started trying to pull away from the pain, both Jenny and Jack caught hold of flailing limbs for the few seconds it took for him to use the last of his energy, then Jack pulled him close to his chest.

"WHAT THE HOLY CHRIST WAS THAT?" he shouted pulling away from Jack until the second hit of adrenaline of the night subsided. Seconds later he relaxed back into Jack's tight embrace.

"That was a thank you for getting a Tridacan research ship out of trouble." Said Jack, wiping away the unbidden tears of pain.

"If that was a present I don't want to get on their bad side." He said with a little of his normal sarcasm, but it was hard hearted.

"Which is why the earth won't be ready for it's commercial application for another few decades." Said Jack quietly.

"Just think of the applications for facial disfigurement." Said Jenny carefully covering the wound with a large piece of Micropore.

"Joan Rivers would be happy." Said Ianto

"Which is why the twenty first century needs to mature." Said Jack kissing his forehead and pushing Ianto way by holding onto his biceps, he stroked a finger down his cheek, "You ok?"

Ianto sat up and nodded, Jenny absently pulled the blanket round his legs as she started to clean up.

Jack skipped off to get Ianto something a little more comfortable and Ianto sat with his head in his hands. He looked up to see Jenny proffering a couple of pills and a glass of red liquid that he hoped was cranberry juice.

"You could have given me some warning." He said swallowing the pills back and taking a swig of the juice.

"And if you knew what was about to happen would you have gone through with it?"

"Not without a general anaesthetic."

"Don't think the Tridacan do anaesthetics, reacts in, well lets say a combustible manner." She flicked up the various chemical equations and Ianto sort of hummed absently as the tablets took effect. "I meant it about the rest too, its magic not a miracle, needs a few days to allow your body to stabilise the bonds."

Ianto nodded as she looked back at him. Jack came back with some jogging pants and a thick white t-shirt.

"Need a lift home?" asked Jack as he helped Ianto into his night attire.

"Nah, not particularly tired anymore, I've got a few things I can be doing and if the urge comes over me I'll take forty winks on the couch."

Jack nodded,

"That's got to be a record" slurred an increasingly sleepy Ianto, "less than 72 hours and she's already as cracked up as the rest of us."

Jack chuckled, "Welcome to the Club."

"I think you mean welcome back."

Jack smiled as he swept Ianto into a carry, the young man was asleep and Jack could watch him dozing for hours. He moved slowly and quietly back towards the Hub and his own room, Jenny watched as she washed her hands, it was nice watching how tender Jack was but it only brought her own loneliness into sharp focus. Ah well nothing like a good mystery to solve to take her mind off it, now why were trees falling on Cardiff?


	10. Suprises all round

"Morning Campers." Shouted Gwen cheerily as the cog rolled back. She pulled the oversized bag she always used over her head and touched the dog eared photo of Tosh and Owen and looked round the Hub. Ianto raised a hand as he placed the last cup on his tray, he had only been making three but Jack had shouted when he saw Gwen bouncing across the Plass, it made Gwen think he was telepathic. Gwen busied about opening her email, deleting the general broadcasts from UNIT, when would Marge their receptionist in the Nottingham office learn the difference between the contact all and contact local button? She did not want to know that yet another set of keys had been handed in and then found two minutes later. Gwen only looked up when she realised her coffee hadn't appeared and saw Ianto edging painfully step by step down the stairs, she quickly got up to help him, feeling guilty she hadn't noticed before.

"What were you upto last night eh?" she asked jovially and then instantly regretted it, "I mean..." she started in an effort to back pedal into somewhere less sensitive.

"I fell over on a Weevil hunt, had my leg frozen by some evil alien super medicine and I was then given some horse strength knock out pills, how about you Gwen?"

"Well Rhys and I had a quiet night, you know, both been at work all day." she said trying to close this dark avenue down. "You should have called me in." said Gwen with a pouty voice.

"No need had it under control," he said easing himself down the last few steps "besides didn't need all of us."

He placed the tray down on the rickety coffee table, one day soon it would collapse under the weight of unread UNIT flyers and the Sunday supplements they never seemed to read but Ianto had worked out a way of balancing the weight so it stayed up right.

"You can take Jack's coffee up if you want, save me a job." He said to Gwen, she smiled and grabbed the stripy mug that seemed to be able to last through every known attempt to break it. It was only as she climbed the stairs that she looked at her watch and realised that at this time on a Thursday morning he would be talking to Mr Frobisher and he might not be in the best of moods. She peered through the glass and saw he had gone through the anger stage and was onto boredom, apparently playing the game of 'how far he could lean back on his chair without falling over'; he was getting very good at it. Gwen knocked quietly on the glass and walked in silently, she put the mug on the desk within reach and was surprised but delighted when Jack tipped forward and caressed the back of her hand as she withdrew, mouthing his thanks silently and yawning theatrically to show his disinterest. She smiled like a little girl and backed out as Jack started speaking again to refuse some request for information or pooling of resources, when would they ever learn?

Back in the Hub Ianto stood to the side of the sofa and gently called Jenny's name. At some point during the night Jack had slipped out and found her with her head back and open mouthed sat asleep on the couch. With a gentleness borne of many years practice he had laid her down and covered her over with a spare blanket kept close by for that very purpose, but in doing so had covered her hands. Rule number 4 at Torchwood, never wake an operative quickly unless you know what is in their hands, too many years of fighting had honed most of them to shoot, stab and generally defend themselves first before any sort of cognitive thought formed. The reported incidents had rarely been fatal but sometimes it was better to err on the side of caution. The gentle calling failed so he crouched down and gently tapped her on the shoulder, which finally got the reaction he wanted and he held another chunky mug under her nose.

"Wakey wakey, Americano with cream, no sugar, double shot."

She took a deep breath in and stretched her arms out above her head, looking slightly surprised at her surroundings, she grabbed the mug with one hand propping herself up with the other. She murmured her thanks as Ianto went to get back up and failed, his injured leg giving up on him and dumping him on the floor unceremoniously. Jenny spit the mouthful of coffee back into the cup and scrabbled out from under the blanket suddenly awake.

"Are you ok, what happened, does your leg hurt?" she asked hauling him onto the warm couch and pulling his trouser leg up to check there wasn't any bleeding.

Ianto just stared ahead biting the inside of his lip till he'd calmed himself down.

"Yes, gave way and not as much as last night but my pride is slightly bruised." He said without emotion.

Seemingly satisfied that he hadn't caused any more damage she smoothed down his trousers and sat back on the couch, pulling the blanket up from where it was caught under him and folding before putting it on the end of the sofa, she reached over and handed him his own mug.

They both sat staring ahead like an old married couple who had said everything they needed to say to each other.

"Would you like some more pain killers?" she asked at length

He thought about it

"Only if they don't put me to sleep again."

"Ah yes, didn't expect such a fast or comprehensive reaction last night, normal ibuprofen might be better." She said chewing the side of the mug and looking sideways at him.

"I don't mind." He said still looking ahead "Got a really good night sleep which is nigh on impossible in Jack's tiny bed, with Jack hogging most of the duvet." He looked round and smiled.

"So go home like I told you to." Said Jack behind them, sneaking up like a cat again "Doctors orders last night, rest. Go do the things normal people do on a day off and that doesn't include cleaning." Jack circled round in front of them. "You can take him home on your way to get changed." He pointed at Jenny.

She cocked an eyebrow at him and sniffed theatrically at her armpits.

"I was more thinking about the blood stains being bad for customer relations in your line of work." She looked down at the dark shirt she was wearing and sure enough there were spots up the front that no one should have been able to see.

"Damn, this was my last clean one and it seems Owen didn't think a washing machine an essential item."

"He had a cleaner if I remember rightly." Said Jack

"Nope she walked out a few weeks before…" Ianto paused and realised he didn't need to fill in the blank "Well she'd walked in on him once too often, in flagrante, and he never got round to getting another one, bring your washing back here and I'll stick it in the one downstairs until you can get one fitted."

"Not today Josephine, she can go and buy something instead. You are going home." Replied Jack with a finality in his voice.

"I'm fine Jack, I have a few things I can sit down and do in the archives." Said Ianto with a small amount of menace in his voice.

"For crying out loud Ianto relax for once in a while." There was a slight plaintive cry in his voice, he wanted to remind him about a promise he had once made about not letting Torchwood become the only thing, but now wasn't the time or place. Jack just stared at Ianto with a cocked eyebrow and Jenny saw it for the territory marking it was and with Jack it was unlikely to be just physical.

She snapped her fingers between them twice in quick succession breaking the low level telepathy that the 21st century called hypnotism but the 51st century would equate to a mobile phone call, Jenny preferred to call it mind control in two unequal subjects.

"For once, and I do hate to say it, Jack might be right. Lets go home." Jenny clapped a hand on his good leg, Ianto sighed, he had once promised himself not to get like Tosh who didn't seem to have a life outside or Owen who was always running to hide but he realised that was who he had become recently, perhaps he could ask Jenny to do the night shift and try and recreate the abortive romantic night in from a few days ago.

"I knew you would see sense." Said Jack perching on the coffee table, Ianto winced because he was sure it would collapse but it amazingly stayed solid, even the bloody table was swayed by his pheromones. "Before you go though I have a surprise." He turned and hollered for Gwen to come over even though she was already listening in and less than twenty feet away.

Gwen scampered over and squashed on the end of the couch, nudging Jenny closer to Ianto so she was uncomfortably squeezed between the others, she crossed her arms in her lap and smiled.

"I have just got off the phone to UNIT and they have agreed to cover any emergencies caused by the Rift or marauding aliens or angry Weevils for this weekend so we can stand down and have a little R&R." His voice was measured and slow because he wanted them to have time to take it in before jumping in with questions, that tack would never work with Gwen though.

"You're not thinking of letting UNIT in here, do we have time to lock everything down, who'll feed Myfanwy?" her armes swinging around in direct correlation with the rising tone of her voice.

Jack held his hand up at the onslaught.

"No that was what I've just spent the last hour sorting out, UNIT are going to use an army unit at Llandaff , they won't have to come into the Hub at all and we can divert all the alerts to mobile comms just in case." He took a breath and said something he never thought he would. "You know it isn't our job to save the world all the time."

"I'll hang round Cardiff , need to get to know the place again, guess it's changed a bit since I last spent some time here." Said Jenny

"When was that?" asked Gwen, the nosiness getting in the way of her own indignation

"Well lets put it this way if we discount my enforced stay at Hotel Torchwood, on demand in room torture included in the price, I think in my previous visit I watched them rebuild the castle after Owain Glyndŵr trashed the place. He was quite good looking you know but the temper on him." She tutted.

"Wait you're saying you haven't been here since, since medieval times?" asked Gwen

Jenny mentally counted the years and places, "Nope not for any length of time anyway, few things have changed." She said speculatively.

Gwen shook her head, "I have enough problem working out when Jack's lying now I have to cope with you."

"I don't need to lie, I have a story for every occasion." Said Jenny quietly, Jack nodded with a faraway look in his eye then snapped back to reality.

"Can we just have a little focus here kids? Thank you for the offer but I already have something planned."

"No more camping" muttered Ianto under his breath

"Please, I do have a little more class than that." Said Jack childishly "Get your glad rags on people we are going out." He beamed as the other three looked back suspiciously.

"Awh come on guys, I book us a table at the best restaurant in Cardiff, for five by the way we need Rhys, and I get us all rooms in the best hotel in Wales, suites if you please, and you look at me like I've just offered you up for a slave auction."

"Ok, who are you and what have you done with Jack?" asked Gwen with a very serious face

"I am turning over a new leaf, I am making time to relax and we start now."

"Well I'm not complaining." Said Ianto, knowing how extravagant Jack could be when he wanted to be.

"I don't know what Rhys has planned." Started Gwen

"It's black tie, does he have a tux?" asked Jack not listening to her moaning

"He plays rugby Jack, he even knows how to tie a bow tie."

"Miracles never cease" muttered Ianto and received a crack round the head from Gwen for his troubles.

"Just because he didn't go to university doesn't mean he's thick you know." She huffed.

Jack held up a hand in truce. How come having fun was so difficult to organise?

"Gwen, any luck on the rift incursions in the wine bar?" He asked in deflection

Gwen squirmed, she hadn't even looked at it as they had spent more time on the trees that they had been told to leave. Jenny stepped in,

"I had a closer look at the energy readings, but they're so small it is hard to see anything. However I have found two interesting things," she stopped mid sentence and bounced off the sofa, grabbed some papers off her desk and ran back, deliberately misjudging the distance between the bodies on the sofa so she sat back closer to Gwen who was forced to give her some more room.

"Firstly all of this has happened before", she pointed out a graph with years on showing clusters of very low energy readings every few years and a map tracking in a straight line across Cardiff .

"Secondly, if you magnify the tracings you get this." She placed a second graph, so inflated that the line had pixalated, on Jacks lap as a make shift table. She traced a finger along the wobbly line, over the hump of energy created and then as it dipped ever so slightly below the line. Gwens eyes turned to saucers, it was Jonah all over again. Jack picked up the paper and turned it round and squinted a bit.

"I ran a search against other rift readings but negative energy of any size is rare, but when it does happen is normally much more pronounced and it is a constant phenomena on all these readings, clusters of about 30 to 40 events every few years. It doesn't have enough energy to be taking anything and we know nothing is being dumped, I'm stumped." She bit her lip and jabbed Gwen in the ribs as she stifled a giggle at the tree reference.

"Well it won't be taking fresh air." Said Ianto looking at the paper as Jack handed it over.

Jenny and Jack both looked up sharply.

"From out of the mouth of babes." Muttered Jenny, Ianto nudged her in the ribs.

"But why?" asked Jack to no one in particular.

"Rewind a second am I missing something here?" Gwen held her hand up before anyone could speak "I mean we decided this was nothing the other day."

"What Ianto has divined is that something is sniffing the breeze, the energy loss is where something is being removed – in this case a tiny amount of the air we breathe." Replied Jack

"Why?" she asked

"Don't know, it's a question I look to you to find answers for." He said passing over all the paperwork Jenny had generated, He had to admit Gwen was good on this type of investigation.

"I'll give you a hand when I come back." Said Jenny, "We can talk shoes." She offered even though it wasn't really her thing. Gwen smiled,

"Ianto, love, is it alright if I go in the archives and cross reference some of the past incidents?"

"Only if you promise to leave it as you find and keep him," Ianto pointed at Jack, "Away from any part that doesn't look like a bomb has hit it."

"So I should be fine in most of it then." Replied Jack receiving a very deep scowl from his trouble.

Gwen bounced off like a puppy with a slipper. Jenny stood arranging to meet Ianto on the Plass for his lift and left to freshen up slightly leaving Jack and Ianto alone in the vast cavernous main hall.

"Contrary to popular belief I do care for my staff." Said Jack pulling Ianto into a soft embrace, Ianto tensed as he looked to see no one else was able to see them, then he dropped his head on Jacks shoulder.

"Oh I'm staff again am I?" he asked in a mock affronted voice.

"It was you who set the rules Ianto and I'm always willing to break them." He replied bringing Ianto's head up for a gentle but passionate kiss.

Ianto pulled back gently, that was two rules broken in as many minutes.

"Come over when you're finished Jack, get UNIT in early, I don't want to spend my whole weekend sharing you with Gwen and Jenny,"

Jack smiled and kissed the top of Iantos head.

"Well make sure you get some rest today, I intend to keep you up all night."

"Promises, Promises Jack." Said Ianto as walked over to the invisible lift. "I'll take the tradesman's entrance, save the leg work."

Jack flipped the cover on his wrist strap and the hydraulics whirred into life. "Promises, promises Ianto." Shouted Jack giving him a smart salute. Ianto kept eye contact until his head was well out into the Plass and Jack chuckled as he straightened his suit ready to step out and face the world again, he wondered if he remembered that Jenny had left her Firebird yesterday…


	11. Quite an evening

Really sorry this is a long one but I couldn't find a decent break point. Hope you still enjoy it.

After quite a bit of 'persuading', which basically consisted of Gwen telling Rhys that he would have to phone Banana and call off the bender they had planned he agreed to the 'artsy fartsy dinner party'. He had tried half heartedly to protest but there was no stopping an unstoppable force of nature like his wife. He had grumped for a while until they had stepped into the suite and he had seen the bed, then the bath "The size of one at Cardiff Arms Park" she had later relayed to Ianto over champagne. Rhys had finally decided that it might be a better night than the one he had planned when he saw the fully stocked mini bar and the chilled bottle of Verve Clicot on the small table next to the 50 inch television. Gwen wasn't sure which he was more thrilled about.

With all the other distractions the happy couple were still getting ready, precisely Gwen was still layering her mascara and Rhys was struggling to get the bowtie right, when reception called up to say the car was there. Finally they came down stairs,

"Bloody hell Love" exclaimed Rhys when he saw the car, "Doesn't do things by half does Jack." The sleek black sedan was nearly the size of one of his lorries and the grey capped driver opening the door started Rhys off with the boyish chattering again. Jack's a clever sod sometimes, thought Gwen – not only does he get the team together he also managed to get me and Rhys back on the straight and narrow.

Jack was pleased with himself, even more so than normal in fact, he had pulled soooo many strings to get this to come together but stood at the head of the grand staircase at the Castle he knew it was worth it. Ianto had persuaded him into a tux of his own when he offered to remove it as soon as they were alone, he looked good in black. Ianto came and stood beside him as Gwen and Rhys finally arrived, her flustered state spoiling the overall effect but Jack smiled at his beautiful girl resplendent in a draped black dress that showed just the right amount of cleavage as it swept to the floor. Rhys dramatically took her arm and led her up the stairs feeling like a movie star, from somewhere in the shadows a silent waitress proffered a tray of champagne and Jack gave a glass to each of them, taking the spare glass in his other hand and looking down the stairs as the large wooden door opened to allow a single person in. Quickly he put the glasses back on the tray and skipped back down the stairs,

"Sorry, the driver got lost in the one way system." Said Jenny, looking uncharacteristically nervous. She was wearing a long dark blue fitted coat, double breasted and flared from the waist. Jack kissed her warmly on both cheeks then moved behind her to take her coat from her shoulders, the three stood at the top of the stairs all took a sharp breath.

"Now that could set you on the straight again eh Ianto?" asked Rhys getting a sharp dig from both sides.

Jenny stood in a scarlet silk corset dress, strapless and slit mid thigh. Her dark hair was swept up in a style reminiscent of Audrey Hepburn and secured with a sparking slide and grips. Round her neck was a deep chocker glinting in the candle light, possibly two inches deep and tight to her neck, deepening down her front and matching the drop ear rings. Her hand clutched a bag the matched her dress and glittered with a wide bracelet.

Jack handed the coat to another liveried valet and turned as Jenny said something they couldn't make out.

"Have I gone over the top?"

Jack slid his arm smoothly round her waist and nudged her forward, whispering into her ear,

"You look just perfect."

"Do you think they're real?" asked Gwen in her theatrical whisper

"Can't be, there must be an allotment of carats down there." Replied Rhys

"Oh I think they are." Replied Ianto, "I don't think she does fake."

"Blimey, I can't wait till you get the promotion if you can afford stuff like that." He said jovially to Gwen.

"Fifty years of back pay can mount up." Replied Gwen

"Only fifty?" asked Ianto quietly and they both rolled their eyeballs as Rhys only half got the joke.

They lost count of the courses and the perfectly chosen wine for each course and the ban on anything to do with Torchwood probably allowed them to learn more about each other in the three hours before they got to coffee than in the three years previously working cheek by jowl. Moving over to a set of leather sofas by a great roaring fire the group had complained about the state of the coffee, laughing at Ianto's face when he grimaced. There had been more stories, most of which started, 'and there was this time…'. As the brandy came out Jack stood up again and grabbed Ianto and Gwen who happened to be nearest to him, like a child he started skipping to the door where staff suddenly appeared with the coats again.

"Jack, what's happening?" asked Gwen playfully.

"Well I like to finish the night with a bang." He said with one of his best smiles.

He ushered them up the stairs and to the highest point of the Victorian pastiche, Rhys stayed firmly in the middle of the walled turret while Jack took a running step and stood on the parapet, Ianto shook his head and stayed behind the wall next to Jenny. With the final touch the fireworks started and seemed to go on for ages, at one point Jack looked back at the faces and fixed the moment in his memory, he loved happy.

In the next few days there would be quite a bit of debate about who wanted to walk back to the hotel, it probably wasn't Gwen with those shoes and Ianto was slightly too merry to think independently, but they started off over the cobbles with a bit of a wobble. It would have made a great recruiting poster if they wanted to get new blood, arms linked round waists Jack in the middle, his ladies either side of him, Rhys holding on to Gwen and Ianto on the other edge his fingers twined with Jacks behind Jenny's back. Laughing and generally carrying on the group made their way into the town, the other revellers of the night parting ways as they came through. The party line only broke up when Gwen tottered over her ankle and declared she couldn't walk any further, Jack was all for calling a cab but Rhys offered her a piggy back in a show of bravado that didn't take into account the dodgy L3 vertebra but alcohol had numbed the pain along with his brain. The other three couldn't help laughing as Gwen's skirt got in the way and Jack had to help lift her high enough to get her legs round his waist. As he was doing so the alarm started going off on his wrist strap, he dropped Gwen like a hot brick and ripped the cover open.

"I thought you gave UNIT control." Shouted Gwen as she looked at the others, Jenny was opening her purse and Ianto was reaching for his inside pocket.

"I did." Shouted Jack as he pressed buttons. "This is a personal alarm."

Jenny pulled out a small film of plastic that suddenly became opaque as she touched it, Ianto had a small gun in his palm, Rhys swore and Gwen pulled out her own weapon. Rhys, suddenly sober, put his head in his hands.

"So much for trusting UNIT." Said Jack spinning round

"A really high and sudden surge in Rift energy very close by." Shouted Jenny

"Isn't that wine bar near here?" Ask Ianto in a quiet and even voice.

They were all off and running, Gwen kicked her heels off and caught up leaving Rhys stood there before he picked up the shoes and trailed after them. Jack, who now had his Webley held at his shoulder, burst through the doors of the empty bar, the only people left inside were a bored barman and a couple in the corner who should have got a room about three drinks ago. The team fanned out around him as he shouted for everyone to leave in a dramatic fashion that would have had impact if only there had been anyone to hear. The barman needed no encouragement but the couple in the corner were too engrossed in each other, as well as high on drink and coke to the point their world was only about three inches away from their faces. Ianto looked round as Jack snapped his head in their direction and he went to move them on nearly getting punched for his troubles.

"What's happening?" asked Jack in a low voice as Jenny used the portable rift detector in her hand.

Jenny shrugged and tapped a few more times. "Gone dead."

Jack cautiously lowered his gun and looked round at Gwen.

"UNIT got the flash and have sent a unit over to check out what's happening, should be two minutes." She said flipping her phone closed, Rhys tentatively stuck his head through the door as the snogging, groping couple fell in a heap as they went back into the street.

"Well that killed the atmosphere." He said wiggling Gwens shoes at her. She pulled a face as she realised what she was stood on, and started walking on tip toe to the door. Jack smiled and laughed at the sight as he holstered the Webly, he turned round to look at the rest of the team as Jenny tried to take a reading and Ianto jumped boyishly down the step from the raised table area.

As he turned back to the door something caught his eye and the world seemed to slow down, as Ianto made the flight into midair the shimmer started and before he had reached the ground four inches below the shimmer had engulfed him. Jack whipped round as his wrist strap started screaming in counterpoint to Jenny's handheld.

"NO' he roared as Jenny ran to help Ianto who looked like he had just fallen over but he was too late and she crossed the blue shimmering light barrier and arched her back as the pain lanced through her. Jack ran towards the pair who looked to be collapsed on the floor, but the more observant would have noticed they were actually floating a centimetre from the ground. Jenny pulled herself onto all fours and looked round, the room was disappearing in a bright light.

"Shit" exclaimed Ianto, "Are we dead?"

"No, not yet I don't think." She tapped the film of the hand held, Ianto scrutinised her face

"What is it then?"

"I think this is a time bubble."

"What does that mean?" his voice was starting to get a little panicked and he pushed himself to his feet, he felt like he was walking on jelly.

"I don't know, we've never managed to speak to anyone who has been in one before, careful what you touch there is a lot of energy floating round to cause this bubble.

Ianto wasn't listening, in the increasing glow there was one shape looming out at them, Jack, his lips were moving but he couldn't hear the sound, he reached out to touch him and Jack started to frantically wave his hands as if flagging down a train but it was too late and Ianto reached through the energy barrier.

"I'm going to get you out of there Ianto, Jenny where are you, show me the readings." Jack stood at a respectful distance while Gwen started yelling in earnest down the phone to the UNIT guys who had apparently stopped at a red light. He hoped they could hear him but the energy barrier could be too strong.

"Don't panic, we'll get you out of there." He shouted with a note of panic in his own voice as Ianto took no notice of him, he started to come towards him, arm outstretched. Jack shouted and waved his arms in front of himself taking a step backwards as if willing Ianto to do the same but he was too late. The light blue wavering light turned red and angry as he heard Ianto screaming before it was cut off as the barrier closed again, Ianto crashed to the floor again in the bubble and Jack fell to his knees. Jenny whipped round and knelt next to Ianto, he was silent and unconscious as she checked his pulse and looked at this left arm which had been thrown to the side and wide from his body deeply burnt, the smell of burnt flesh turned her stomach. All Jack could do was stare as Ianto came to, screaming and riving in agony as Jenny did her best to calm him down. It was like watching a silent movie in colour, Gwen ran behind Jack.

"What can we do?" she demanded

"Nothing, there's nothing we can do." He stated, the tears running unbidden down his face

"There's got to be something." She shouted "Bring them back, throw them a rope, Something."

Jack wiped the tears from his face with the cuff of his jacket and suddenly started groping round in the pocket, Gwen was shouting at the bubble and it must have caught Jenny's eye as she shook her head, her own mascara streaking down her face as she pulled Ianto closer and then in the strangest move Gwen had ever seen she wrapped her legs round Ianto's waist and turned them face on to Jack and Gwen, whispering unheard words in his ear.

"What's she doing, Jack what the hell is she doing?"

"Making sure they don't get separated in the Rift storm they're about to be sucked into." He said without emotion. Ianto was shouting something they couldn't hear as Jack held a small metal tin in front of him, it was the morphine he always carried and Gwen suddenly had a bad feeling.

"Jack what are you doing?" she practically screamed as she heard the heavy thud of boots on the pavement outside and Rhys shouting from the door.

Jack took a step forward and thrust his hand through the energy curtain only to be thrown back violently about three metres, eyes open and Gwen knew he was dead again.

"He'll be fine." She shouted as the swirling angry cloud started to change form, she could see Jenny reaching for the tin and Ianto convulsing with the pain both mental and physical, she was sure the last thing she saw was Ianto shouting the words "I love Him". There was a sudden bright light and sparks as every electrical object blew and sparks flew from the mobile in her hand and then darkness as most of the street lights in the area spontaneously exploded.

Gwen was blown off her feet and it took her a second to get her bearings in the pitch dark.

"Jack. Jack where are you?" She shouted then suddenly questioning her own priorities she screamed "Rhys are you alright?"

She didn't get a reply from either, as Rhys had been thrown out the door and was currently being helped to his feet by a rather beautiful dark skinned UNIT officer, she dusted him down and ran to the door, Rhys tried to grab her but she was already too far away.

"Don't go in there, it's dangerous." He shouted but she was already shouting orders and the names of Jack, Gwen and Ianto.

Gwen swept her hands round on the floor, picking up deep cuts from the glass, until she found what she was looking for, a pair of feet. She pulled herself up the legs, feeling to check it all seemed attached and made her way to Jack's head, he was still, much too still but she knew better than to feel for a pulse. Jack felt different dead, she couldn't describe it possibly the tension left is body for those vital few minutes but his skin would feel different and she could pull him softly into her arms. He didn't need to wake up in the dark and alone with his last memory being of in lover in desperate pain, she started mumbling things to him her mouth in his hair rocking them both slightly. She registered her name being shouted and the door opening with a light appearing but couldn't do anything. Her dress was in ruins, her hands and knees cut and bleeding and there was nothing she could do to make this right.

"Gwen." A light came round in her face and she blinked. "Gwen are you alright?" she knew the voice, couldn't place it, but she knew it.

"They're gone and Jack's dead and there was nothing we could do." She said flat and lifeless.

"Gwen, Jack will be fine, you're bleeding." That voice, the hand over hers, they knew Jacks secret. There were more voices now more lights, mens voices, shouting and ordering.

"They can't see." Gwen whispered as the light went from her face, the holder had stood up ordering everyone out apart from Rhys, Gwen felt his arms on her shoulders.

"Gwen they're going to wait outside till he's back. Just you, me and Rhys waiting here." Gwen nodded and felt Rhys pull her hands away and turn them over.

"Love you're all cut and bruised."

She just nodded.

"I'll take a look in a second." Replied the woman in the UNIT uniform but was cut short from any other reply as Jack wheezed back into life

"Martha." He exclaimed and looked round seeing Gwen and Rhys but no one else. He looked down at the blood on his shirt but feeling none of the residual after effects of a stabbing or shooting just the weird tingling that death by electrocution gave him.

"Hello Jack." Said Martha, she'd had a whole 'Surprise' speech worked out for Sunday when the hand back was due but it didn't really seem appropriate in the circumstances. His head moved round quickly as he assessed what was around him, and more importantly what wasn't. He looked down and saw where the bloody had come from and Rhys's hands gently pulling them away.

"We saw the energy surge as we came down The Hayes, short but very strong. What happened?" asked Martha very gently. She moved over and took Gwen's hands but couldn't see in the half light.

"The Rift swallowed Ianto and Jenny." Said Gwen quietly.

"This was not natural." Said Jack simply, the set of his jaw rippled with anger. He stood quickly and wished he hadn't as Martha stepped over to keep him upright, a second later he had pulled himself together, shook himself mentally and then stalked over to where Ianto and Jenny had been sucked away.

Jack started pacing round the area that was strangely illuminated by the flashing lights of the UNIT vehicles outside and the police car that had rolled up to see what was happening.

"Jack, I'll get our investigation team in to do that." Said Martha across the room

"Is that why you're here? To spy on me?" the unreasonable leaps seemed so sane to Jack at the moment, he was absolutely stricken by grief but he couldn't, wouldn't show it.

"No Jack I wanted some field command experience so I've been seconded for six months, I only arrived on Tuesday and they asked me to come over, I was going to surprise you on Sunday."

"Well we don't need any help so leave."

"Jack be reasonable." Said Rhys, he knew the bloke had his moods but this was worse than PMT. "Gwen needs to see a doctor and Martha seems as good as any."

Martha took the cackhanded compliment in the way it was intended and shouted to the sergeant she knew was waiting on the other side of the door for lights and the med kit.

"This is a Torchwood investigation." Snarled Jack as the black uniformed party started to swarm the room. The arc lights suddenly showed up the complete seediness of the smelly bar and the bleeping, swirling noises of the other kit they brought with them added to the surreal feeling.

"We can help Jack, you can't do it all alone."

"I lost them, I'll find them." He stalked to the door, scattering UNIT soldiers like skittle pins. "Are you coming Gwen?" he asked his voice dripping with sarcasm.

"Stop being an arse Jack, can't you see Gwen's injured." Said Rhys feeling righteous and protective of his woman.

Jack faltered slightly and turned back towards them, Martha pressed home the advantage.

"If not UNIT let me help, please Jack, I'll hand over to Sergeant Quillam and come and do what I can, at least let me use your facilities to patch Gwen up because she'll spend all night in A&E if we take her there."

Jack looked round and the six or so soldiers carried on as if there was no argument going over them. Gwen turned on the Puss in Boots eyes and nodded slightly, Jack closed his eyes as if he was trying to snap out of a hypnotic trance.

"Fine, you and you alone – these Goons" Jack swept round "keep the hell away from my place."

Martha stood up and nodded, "Sergeant you're in charge here, keep me informed, any clues call me. I'll report in tomorrow morning."

Quillam nodded his head, "We prefer the term highly professional and well trained soldiers, Sir."

Jack stared back blankly his mouth open slightly because he couldn't remember what he'd said less than two minutes before but he knew it must have been offensive.

"Sure, apologies, only doing the job you're paid for. Right." He said ending with his lopsided grin that didn't even reach his nose let alone his eyes. Jack stood amazed as the youngest member of the team came up with some sort of scanning device that started squealing at him, Sergeant Quilliam sent him away with a flea in his ear.

"Look, I know our organisations don't always have the best relationship but I promise to do everything I can to help you bring them back. We look after our own Sir."

The room was spinning round Jack, threatening to overwhelm again, think, stop, control.

"I know you do, your help is appreciated." He said straightening up and starting to turn, the salute wasn't expected but instinct made him snap back.

"Oi, Runty put down the toy and drive the nice officers and their guests where ever they want to go." Ordered Quillam at the youngster. "And I don't want to know where that is." He winked, as if he really didn't know already.


	12. Making Sense

Jenny had often heard from coma survivors that your senses came back in blocks, the old wives tale that hearing was the last to go and first to come back seemed to have a grain of truth. However the thing that started to pull Jenny back to reality was smell, most definitely smell, rank and evil, it was the pungent nasty smell of urine and manure mixed with damp fungus infected straw. The next was touch, or more identifiably the crushing sensation on her chest, which led to sight through opening her eyes. This was less than useless though as she was either blind, the flash of energy had been extremely bright, or more hopefully in the pitch dark. She carried on moving her hands around and they connected with what she hoped was a head, the taste of bile and the acrid tang of burnt flash starting to make themselves known. So hearing was the last sense to return, precisely because there was nothing to hear but her own screaming, no electric hum of lights, no static from electronic devices nothing.

She took a deep breath, if nothing else the pungent smell of the ammonia brought her to her senses. Horse shit, that was the smell, horse wee and straw all pointed towards a stables but as her fingers ghosted over the face of the body on top of hers and down to the thready, but oh so there pulse, her memories rushed back. She remembered the g-force drag that had pulled them like the first moment a rollercoaster falls and it turning into a washing machine ride that had nearly torn them apart.

"Ianto." Jenny tapped his face, whispering as close to his ear as the difficult position they were in would allow. She was starting to get the idea it was night as her eyes became more accustomed to the low light and the very occasional whinny and a scrape of metal on stone also suggested stable. The straw around them also ticked the right box, it was lucky the rift had dumped them in an unoccupied box as a shire horse hoof could really spoil your day. More was coming back, the smell of burnt flesh was coming back and the flash, the flash as Jack had thrown something through the energy curtain, it had seemed to precipitate the final breakdown of the whirlwind that was holding them in a sort of limbo. She patted the floor around them for the tin, she had no idea what was so valuable you risk getting swept into a rift storm. She called Iantos name again and made ever widening sweeps for the box, perhaps it was that movement that finally got through to him.

It was touch with Ianto, well pain but that wasn't one of the classical five senses, searing, vomit inducing pain. The sort of pain that truly made you forget your name and the will to live. He started screaming, it wasn't a conscious thought because, as Jack had once pointed out, he wasn't a screamer, and at first he didn't even realise the noise was coming from him until he felt a hand over his mouth and heard urgent hissing to be quiet in his ear. He tried to look around, find something safe to take away this pain but it was black. The only thing he could latch onto was the calm voice and the arm around his chest, he took a very deep breath and tried to grab onto the arm but found he could only move one arm as the other one was numb.

"Ianto, try not to move now, it's ok, we're safe for the moment." He heard the words 4 times before he could process them. Finally he swallowed convulsively and nodded his head the tears flowing unbidden down his cheeks, the hand started stroking his face and belatedly he realised the voice belonged to Jenny.

"What happened? Where are we?" He whispered, not knowing why but understanding loud voices weren't required.

"Rift storm picked us up and dumped us god knows where. No don't move, certainly don't move your left arm." She said as he shifted his body weight helping him to sit up more, his leg was curled up beneath him and it was going dead. He cried out again involuntarily, he was sweating and going to be sick. Jenny just pulled his head closer to her chest, shushing him and rocking him gently like a baby using calming words and using her hand to cover his free ear and the arm over his face, just like putting a hood on a hawk.

When he had managed to get a little more semblance of control she moved her hand away and spoke gently.

"Is the pain only in your arm?" He could feel her supporting his body weight to one side as she swept the floor around them, he took a second to do a quick audit. The whole of his left arm below the elbow was on fire and the exploratory ripple he tried to give his fingers lanced pain right up to his shoulder, there were pins and needles in his leg, but that was because of the strange angle he landed at, he wasn't a ballet dancer and he knew it. A small noise of triumph signalled she had found whatever she was looking for.

She pulled the tin over popped the lid and there was a faint glow, Jack was like the worlds best boy scout, who else would have in an inside pocket of a tuxedo, an alien light stick in a tin with a small knife, always useful, a vial of morphine, semi-obvious, a packet of Retcon, great, and, bingo, a preloaded syringe of a Torchwood cure all borrowed from some friendly green wibbly things a few years ago. Ianto knew what was in the tin as soon as he saw the glow, he often had to refill the Retcon and had on more than one occasion used the morphine on Jack, the whole lot all at once even though it was three or four normal doses. He felt the needle stab in to his thigh and the irrational thought that he hoped she had checked the dose flittered across his mind. As if she could hear his thoughts she gently spoke again,

"It's only a half dose, I need you with me because we are going to have to get out of here soon." She looked at the second syringe, she remembered this stuff it had been recompense from a grateful alien race for making a rather large hole in Abergaveny. Torchwood had just called it a country park lake and then fought for years over what to do with the fluid. It acted as a broad spectrum antibiotic and sometime anti viral, it would wipe out certain viruses in days but that of course would have caused a world wide collapse in the pharmaceutical industry. The Torchwood Institute might well have been formed to protect the Empire from alien threats but it wasn't about to bring down one of it's greatest money spinners either. So they kept the small supply for themselves and found it brilliant for treating Weevil bites, which had the toxicity of a Komodo Dragon kiss, and all the other little knocks and scrapes they picked up while scrabbling around dirty dank alleys and in the sewers of Cardiff, perhaps one day the world would be ready for a cure all.

"What do we do now?" said Ianto with a wonderful feeling of numbness flowing round his veins.

"You are going to stay here, I am going to find out where and possibly when we are."

Ianto started to struggle upwards but a very slight hand on his shoulder was all that it took to stop him. She used the movement however to wiggle out from under him and to pull him round so his back was against the wall, she tore a strip off the bottom of her dress and wrapped it round the bloody and charred flesh of his arm.

"Hardly the best attire for exploring." She commented, pulling her heel from between the cobbles. Ianto laughed weakly and she stooped down to hold his good hand for a second, it was cold and clammy, she looked round and pulled an old horse blanket down from a hook. She wrapped it round Ianto roughly, trying not to see the lice crawling from the seams, if she was where she thought they were he would have to get used to it.

"Stay here."

"I'll try." He said smiling as she walked briskly into the darkness.

Ianto heard the sound of her tiptoed feet moving away briskly and rested his head against the wooden wall behind him. If he closed his eyes all this would be over and Jack would saunter in, all swagger and that smile, but instead it was still just black and he felt so empty.

Jenny opened the old hand carved door from the stables and stepped out into the fresh night air, she took a deep clearing breath. Just their luck it was a moonless night, but her eyes had adjusted about enough for her to tell there were more buildings to her left. She stood still and swept her eyes around, all she could see were the things that weren't there, no orange glow of street lights, no telephone wires or halogen lights screwed onto the wall. She cursed and clenched her teeth, she could have broken down and cried but she took a deep breath and got over the momentary self-pity. Besides the cold didn't really go with what was left of her dress.

She walked with a sort of resigned confidence, she'd done it too many times to get really scared but she noted the heightened senses. She reached the side of the stone built building, putting her hand on the wall she felt the roughness of the stone unweathered by the passing of centuries. A neat cottage, with a thatch and windows for an upper floor it would be tiny in the world she'd just left but here it was a sign of some wealth. She peered through the downstairs window into the kitchen, there was a fire in the grate but no other signs of life, curtains a triviality in times when you rose and slept with the sun. She skirted round the building and found a small dairy and the laundry / buttery to find prize number one, clothes. She felt slightly guilty as she lifted a few items, only enough to cover their 21st century garb but sometimes people only had two sets. Judging by the sizes there were more than two people using the building, probably dairy maids and stable lads so she found her best fit and guessed for Ianto. She straightened herself out and looked up and down at what she had managed, she would do until she could get to a city and get current money she resolved to send some back to replace what she was stealing, but she had to find out where she was. Leaving the bundle she had purloined for Ianto she moved to the cottage door, genuflecting and praying to Saint Joseph in his role as Patron Saint of buildings she asked that the door be oiled and the dogs quiet, before pushing on the door.

The light from the fire was small and reality she knew it wouldn't be giving out that much heat but on coming out of the cold it felt like a sauna. There was a ginger cat sat in a rocking chair in the corner, it raised an eyebrow then went back to sleep, no dogs, no maid sleeping in the corner, she thanked the saint. She looked around, on the mantle was a statue of Nelson, to her more modern eyes it looked cheap and tacky but it would have been a relatively expensive adoration of a man who had given his life against the French. So as dating evidence went it gave an earliest possible year, but it looked fairly fresh, chip free, which was an indication of newness with the softness of the china. She knew where this was leading, she looked round for the final piece of evidence, she doubted she would find a newspaper, she doubted the occupants would be able to read but there was always… She turned slowly to the dresser and opened the top drawer to remove the family bible. She fingered the heavily tooled leather work and slipped the clasp open to the first page, running over the ornate family tree drawn within. The writing was spidery and faded near the top, there were quite a few lines drawn through the leaves of the tree, children who hadn't reached their first birthday, the grandfather had died in 1798, a child had been born in 1804 so she could place herself after that.

She replaced the bible and looked round the room for any more clues, stepping in the pantry reminded her of many previous lives but the flour jar in the corner gave her the final clue, it was crudely printed with the name of a mill in Keynsham, whoever or whatever brought them here had to be linked to the elm trees, Jack had been wrong after all. Finally she found the last things she had been looking for, a bonnet and rough leather moccasin type shoes, red silk heels were not going to get her very far.

She moved back into the stable and quietly round to Ianto, he was still sat against the partition, his eyes closed and shivering slightly Jenny was sure it wasn't just the cold. She called his name and he responded groggily. She put a hand on his forehead and he opened his eyes, he was unfocused and it took him a second to shake back to reality.

"What did you find?" he asked, his voice thick as his mouth was dry. She held a cup to his lips, she would hold back the knowledge that the water was straight from a well and wouldn't see fluoride for 150 years, Ianto was going to have to adapt. She flicked open the tin for some light and started tearing strips off a sheet she had purloined to wrap his arm.

"Well, good news, as far as I can tell we're still in England." Ianto groaned,

"We started out in Wales." Jenny acquiesced the point that they had moved country, but only over the water. Then she added the but, there was always a but and this was a Torchwood but.

"But I think we had fallen back in time."

"Uh hu." Said Ianto in an uncommitted fashion, "How far?"

"200 years, give or take." They sat in silence for a few seconds, Jenny squeezed Ianto's hand as it started shaking.

"Don't worry, I have plans, we'll be fine, I'll get you back." Just don't ask me how, she thought. She pulled the blanket back over him and sat next to him resting against the wood, purposefully not noticing the tears streaming down his face.

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, before levering herself back up again, Ianto cuffed his face with his good hand and looked at her again in the strange green glow.

"You've got changed." She nodded and did a ditzy twirl that made him chuckle and tossed the items she had found for him down.

"We need to blend in." Sounded business like as she helped get the shirt over his injured arm, "Layers aren't fashion advise round here, central heating has been forgotten about since Roman times, keep your own stuff on but try not to let any one see the plastic buttons or your wrist watch." The second bit was easy it had melted in the heat and was half fused to his arm, that he couldn't feel so he knew it was bad. "Easier to blend in where there are lots of people so I suggest we head for the nearest city, which also happens to be a wonderful port, full of strangers."

"Shouldn't we stay here, so Jack can find us?" said Ianto hearing the patheticness of his own voice. He was shaking with the cold and the delayed shock. Jenny finished putting the stolen shirt on and gently pulled him into a warm embrace.

"Ianto, I don't know how to put this, but if Jack was going to find us here he would have managed it by now." He was shaking his head against his shoulder. "He has all the time in the world to find us, but we don't even know where we are, we need to be somewhere prominent and find away to let him know." She pulled him closer as he used his good hand to grip the front of her blouse.

He knew she was right but he didn't want to think that Jack, his Jack, the man who said would always remember him, he had forever to find him and he hadn't. He'd abandoned him in the past, he hadn't bothered looking, she was right he would have found them if he was bothered. He shuddered and pulled her shirt tighter to him, in return she rocked him gently till he seemed to calm down and then pulled away again.

"Don't worry Ianto, we'll get back, even if they can't find us now I can always hang round and stop it happening, just means I'll have to find something to do for 200 years, guess I can go see all those things I missed. I can be the first in the Klondike, collect Titanic stuff and store it, be out of Europe in 1914." It was her turn to shudder at the thought of some of the things to come. She pulled back and smiled at him, the soft glow from the light stick softening the stress etched in her face, Ianto wasn't fooled though because he saw the same haunted look that often held Jack in it's grip.

"We could take a horse and ride into town." Suggested Ianto as she made him a makeshift sling.

"Horse theft is a capital offence and while the jury might still be out on my ability to die you don't have that luck." Ianto slumped back slightly. "Might get lucky and hitch a lift with a friendly farmer, if not we have Shanks's Pony."

Ianto nodded slowly, even without the leg wobbling effect of the morphine coursing through his system he felt adrift, all the things he could normally count on were gone, phones, the internal combustion engine, computers, even his beloved fountain pen would be a century before it's time. His brain began to shut down again, his vision went to pin points in the darkness, his breathing became shallow and the sounds all became too much. Jenny pulled him in close and held him again till the panic attack subsided, the horses were becoming restless with the noise and adrenalin in the air.

"Ianto we've got to go soon, we can't be round here when the farm house wakes up." He automatically looked at his watch and whimpered again with the pain. "I promise you some of the good stuff once we get settled." She gathered the last remnants of their short stay together and stuffed it in a sack from the back of the stall, she didn't think leaving red stilettos would be very helpful.

Carefully she helped Ianto to his feet and then helped him stand against the wall, her shoulder holding much of his weight, till the blood had started to move back round his body. With his good arm still over her shoulder and her other arm round his waist she manovered him out into the yard and started off down the track, it was slow progress and there was a sliver of light starting on the horizon.

"Which way?" he asked as they came to the end of the farm track.

She looked at the road and shrugged. "I suggest we take the easy road and go downhill, it's also close to west and if we are where I think we are it will lead us back to Bristol."

In the absence of any better plan Ianto nodded and they started the long walk ahead.


	13. Going slowly

This chapter hasn't really wanted to write itself so I don't like it very much, hope it gives you the picture and pray the next instalment is back to it's old self.

"Can you go a little slower?" asked Jack sardonically,

"Jack" said Martha in a low and dangerous warning from the rear of the Land Rover. The back seat was a little cramped with Gwen holding her hands painfully in front of her and Rhys trying, in his own way, to comfort her.

The young UNIT Private put his foot down, scared himself silly as he hit the kerb going round the corner and nearly ended up parking the transport in the old coal dock. Jack was out and running for the faux tourist office even before he stopped, Martha shrugged her shoulders and had a quiet word with her team member as Rhys helped Gwen across the Plass but ran to catch up with the couple as they entered.

By the time they had caught up with Jack he was operating all the various computer stations on the floor of the Hub, pushing back and forth between the screens. The main screen was spewing numbers and letters across it's full expanse in a dizzying way. Martha pointed Gwen towards the autopsy bay and Rhys guided Gwen away from the main area even though she protested loudly.

"Jack?" said Martha walking upto the raised area, she still wore the red beret that she was sure at any other time would have led to a saucy remark. He pushed from Tosh's old station to Gwen's and on both numbers scrolled crazily in a vertical pattern, he growled and tapped furiously. Martha shouted again and this time he turned the chair and stopped abruptly looking at her,

"What?" he snapped, the implication was obvious, he was busy and wasn't going to stop.

"Are you going to let us in Jack?" Martha cocked her head on one side and took the beret off, placing it on the desk next to Iantos mug.

"See all those numbers?" Jack said pointing. "That's the computer trying to make sense of all the changes that are now happening because we didn't work out what those blips meant. That is Ianto and Jenny changing time with every breath they take because this wasn't supposed to happen." His words were precise and pointed "if we don't do something about that very soon the numbers get larger, the present slides further away and BOOM." Jack didn't elaborate what boom meant, he didn't feel he had too and he didn't know what that meant.

Martha took a deep breath and processed the words, always Jack outwardly more worried about the world than his own feelings.

"What would the Doctor say Jack?" she asked quietly, confident that he would reply with his favourite, 'timey wimey wibbly wobbly' or a very possible, 'it's all happened before and it will all happen again', but he came back with neither.

"I don't give a shit, the Doctor isn't here, and neither is Ianto." He started slapping away at computer keys again.

Martha set her hands on her hips. "Fine Jack, I'm going to see to Gwen and if you have finished acting like a child by the time were done you can tell us how we can help you."

Jack stopped, his back to her, took a deep breath and turned to face her. The tears were streaming down his face and he was the picture of abject misery.

"I can't stop, I won't stop, because if I do it will mean I've given up and if I give up I have to live with myself for a very long time. I can't loose him Martha, not yet." He turned back to the keyboard and started typing with a little less gusto until he felt a pair of silky arms twisting round him and a chin resting on his head. The gesture was familiar as one Ianto often pulled at the end of a long day and it broke him momentarily.

"We'll find him Jack, I promise."

She ran her hands down his arms and stopped at the unbalanced feel of the burnt sleeve,

"Does it hurt?"

"My arm? No you know that." He said rubbing the bare flesh

"Anywhere else?" He considered for a moment, he knew exactly what she was asking.

"I think my heart is just about broken." He said quietly.

She pulled him in tighter for a second and rested a little more weight on his head and then pulled him a little closer.

"Go get changed, it's freaking me out seeing you in anything but braces, we can work this out together."

Jack pulled out of the hold she had on him and looked at the screens scanning across the numbers again. Martha took a step back expecting him to ignore her but was surprised when he rose from the chair leaving it spinning in his wake.

"You're right, this needs a few minutes to settle, I want everyone in the conference room in ten."

"We'll be there when Gwen is fixed up." She said strongly as Jack started back to his office.

"Work miracles Doctor Jones." She saluted smartly at the tone.

"Jack, what do you want me to do with Rhys?"

"I said everyone."

She watched as he stepped heavily onto the metal staircase before turning back to the autopsy bay and Rhy's complaining voice.

After a few minutes of Rhy's 'helpful' comments Gwen tactfully set him to get her some more sensible clothes from her locker. The constant noise combined with the rats knawing at her insides with worry were making her feel sick. Martha noticed the ashen features and felt her forehead,

"You alright?"

"I will be when we find them, do you think they're alright?"

"I hope so, I really want to meet Jenny, Owen told me a lot about her." She pulled the final sliver of glass from Gwen's palm and started bandaging.

"Yes she certainly had some stories to tell, reckoned she was getting on for a thousand years old, I mean do you think anyone can really live that long?" Martha realised she'd missed Gwen's leaps of faith.

"Oh I wouldn't be shocked at 900 years old, might look quite good still."

"See you get to meet all the interesting aliens with UNIT, perhaps I should ask for a transfer, could fancy an office in New York." Gwen was off on one of her monologues.

"You must be feeling better love." Said Rhys, coming back down the steps, "You'll never shut her up, she'd love to go to America."

"Stay in Cardiff, it's much nicer, less of a hierarchy, I mean you don't realise there are that many forms in the world till you try and get a secondment, besides travels a curse." A few of the places the Doctor had taken her suddenly flitted through her consciousness, it wasn't the travelling it was the feeling of not being seen that hurt more.

Gwen smiled, Cardiff was her life and Torchwood had grabbed her by the heart. No she liked rainy old Wales you could keep your Chrysler buildings and Central Park had nothing on Bute Park really.

"Jack wants a conference as soon as you're ready." Said Martha checking Gwen's knees and finding only light damage. "Keep your hands as dry as possible for a few days and there should be no lasting damage."

"Don't you have some alien wonder drug to make it all go away?" asked Rhys innocently.

"We do but the side affects out weigh the benefits in this case."

"Remember when my hair went blue?" said Gwen looking him right in the eye, She could have grumped for Europe that week.

"Point taken." He said soberly "Right then if you're off saving the world I'll get home then." He kissed Gwen on the side of her head and started looking for the exit, no matter how many times he'd been down here the place confused him, doors that went nowhere, corridors that came back on themselves and that slab, it was like something out of Hogwarts.

"I think Jack might appreciate your help too." Said Martha

"What me?" asked Rhys unnecessarily pointing at himself. Gwen looked sideways at Martha, she loved Rhys with all her heart but he was a lummox at times and she didn't want him in danger. Rhys was already puffing up his chest,

"Suppose I could make the coffee." He said trying to find a role, the girls shivered

"Just don't suggest that to Jack love." Said Gwen smiling and resting an injured hand on his arm.

"Talk to me people." Said Jack throwing himself into his customary chair at the end of the table, he looked back, 'people' was just Gwen. Martha was still looking at the dizzying numbers trailing up and down the screen. Rhys sat like a naughty school boy sat in the corner, he wondered if he could get Harwoods to stump up for an office like this in his office, though it might look out of place in a Portacabin.

"Well I hate to say this Jack but we think the rift incursions we were monitoring in the pub were linked to the falling trees."

Jack harrumphed, he knew they were linked but he wanted to keep the team away from them because he thought they were the more dangerous, not some little puffs of air in a skanky Wine Bar. "So tell me what you found out there."

Gwen looked sheepish and started to play the screen and keyboard in front of her like a pro. She brought up the map and all the work Jenny had done and answered Martha's questions while Jack sat quietly steepling his fingers and Rhys remembered to close his mouth as he heard more about the origins of the rift than he thought possible.

"So we start digging, Gwen, start on the achieves, just don't mess anything up, Martha, fresh pair of eyes on everything _my_ team has hidden from me on this and Rhys," he looked at Gwens' man and stopped,

"Rhys is brilliant at getting things to the right place at the right time, he can start a time line, search the internet for likely sightings and put all the information together that we get." Gwen looked triumphant, Rhys looked green.

"I can do that love, but first I think I've had a little too much to drink." He stood as the three of them pointed the quickest way to the toilets.

By the time Rhys surfaced and gratefully took the tablets laid out on the desk there was a stack of papers and Gwen was pinning them on the wall of the autopsy suite with difficulty. He took the scraps from her and looked over her work so far, scraps of ancient newspapers printed from the internet, and started moving then round and adding things from the pile and the extra things Martha and Gwen gave him.

"Where's all this lot from?" he asked

"Some of it is the investigation from before, some of it is the computer comparing what's in his memory cache and spitting out the new stuff." Said Martha, quite impressed at the way Rhys was making sense of all the new information.

"Impressive." Said Jack wandering down the stairs with a tray of mugs. "Not Ianto's standard but it's the best I can do."

He started looking at the images and fingering some of the papers reading dates and the stories held within.

"So we start back in 1809, newly arrived travellers attacked in Bristol, tall woman –unusual for the time, anything more?"

"Nothing substantial." Said Gwen picking at her bottom lip, she was glad the metal table was under a sea of papers it was all too reminiscent of the day Manger killed Rhys.

"Do you think they're stuck in some sort of parallel universe?" asked Rhys innocently.

"The rift moves space and time not dimensions." Snapped Jack, if it could he would have moved heaven and earth to get through to Rose, but that was before, now he knew she was happy there, she had got what she wanted in the end. Thoughts of Ianto alone and scared in a strange place flitted through his head, at least the faded cuttings suggested they were together.

"What you mean there are parallel worlds?" asked Rhys incredulously, Gwen laid a warning hand on his arm, this was the reason Jack hated new starters, explaining everything all over again. Jack just cocked an eyebrow and Rhys unexplainably felt tiny.

"So what's the next move Jack?" asked Martha as all eyes fell on the leader.

"Torchwood has lost 14 employees to the rift in the past 150 years, plus countless civilians and none of them has come back." Said Jack quietly.

"Some of them have, perhaps we only find some of them, perhaps the others just walk off and don't even know they've gone, just look at Emma, she's really happy in London now." Her voice tailed off, she had one good example and a whole island full of mishaps.

"What about the rift manipulator?" asked Martha quietly. It was the one piece of equipment that UNIT would kill to have and the reason why Jack would never let them in. Jack threw a daggered look at her that told her she'd gone one step too far.

"We can't control it." Said Gwen sadly and stroked a bewildered Rhys's arm.

Gwen went to open her mouth again but Jack pre-empted her "We will not be using the rift manipulator, it's too dangerous."

Gwen looked defeated and sagged visibly. "We can't just do nothing." The tears were welling in her eyes as Rhys placed a hand on her shoulder.

"Go home Gwen, come back with fresh eyes in the morning, I've got a few options."

Rhys looked at his watch, it was morning now and was about to say something but Jack was also at breaking point too however much he tried to project a calm exterior.

Gwen was in no state to object as Rhys nodded and started pulling his wife towards the entrance though how he would get a taxi at this time in the morning he didn't know. Martha rubbed a hand across Jacks back but wasn't surprised when Jack stalked off without a word, he walked past Gwen and Rhys talking quietly by the sofa and ran up the steps to his office slamming the door fit to smash the glass panel. Martha followed slowly, wondering what she was going to do now, Torchwood was broken and she was torn between loyalty to Jack and getting him through and UNIT who would have to pick the pieces. Gwen was walking over to her desk to pick up her keys as Martha got back to ground level.

"Did you put this here?" asked Gwen turning over a very yellowed envelope, Martha was about to reply when Jack's door flew open and he bellowed for them both holding another envelope and fingering the post-it note affixed to it in Ianto's writing.

"Snap"


	14. Coming to terms

Ianto felt like he was being dragged through cold porridge as he tried to respond to the hand shaking his shoulder. His eyes didn't want to open as the woman's voice hissed in his ear, he wasn't expecting a female voice and he woke with a start, unable to remember where he was. Luckily the hand on his chest stopped him from falling off the edge of the cart and he opened his eyes to the hustle and bustle of old Bristol. Jenny helped him stand while thanking the cart driver as he adjusted to the sight before him. The biggest thing that struck him were the drab colours. The pavements were filthy, the walls dark and dirt splashed up the wall and in the gutters. Occasionally there were new buildings, buildings he recognised as old from trips across the border. The smell was worse than the stable, human smells, unwashed bodies, excrement thrown from windows joined with the animal smells to catch the back of his throat and make him wretch. Jenny helped him to lean against a wall to catch his breath as she looked around appraising their situation.

By the time he had pulled himself together Jenny was ready to move again, ready to enact the first part of their plan, though Ianto claimed little understanding of the complicated stepped approach. He was at sea and was happy to go along with anything that would give him the chance to lie down or get back home, Jenny pushed him to walk slightly in front of him on her outside as befitted their status as man and wife. They walked through the town and into progressively smaller and smaller alleyways until she tugged back on his arm and they stopped. He peered at the fetid street ahead of him looking above the shops he saw what they had come for, three golden balls swinging in the half light.

"Are you sure you're happy with this?" She asked him holding the one gold cufflink he had left in her hand. The pair had been a present from Lisa and held sentimental value as well as being gold, one of course had melted away with the heat of the rift storm. Ianto had readily offered it but Jenny wondered how much he might regret it later. One piece was useless without the other, he had reasoned but she had seen how much he had been fingering the cuffs of his shirt when they had been eating, like touching them was an affirmation of some sort. He closed a sweaty palm over her hand and nodded, he was going to wait outside so she could negotiate the deal, seeing the characters going in and out he wasn't sure which he preferred.

"I won't be long and then we'll find somewhere to sit down and eat." Ianto's stomach growled, he hadn't realised how long they had been moving, the last meal he'd had was the meal the night before, it seemed so much longer. She squeezed his good hand, straightened her oversized shirt and then smoothed down the dress that was acting as a corset underneath and walked over the road.

Walking into the musty pawnbrokers she looked around and sniffed, before making to go back out the door. The hobbit like owner scuttled out from behind his counter, opening his hands expansively and appealing her to stay.

"I think I've made a mistake, I don't think your establishment would want the quality of goods I have to offer."

"Quality establishment this Madam, loans to gentry too." He said uncovering a small case with expensive items in. She pulled a face as if considering the items and then showed the cufflink to him. It was snatched quickly from her hand and appraised by a candle that appeared from behind the counter and then returned to the wooden top.

"Curious little thing, I'll give you a shilling or two for it."

"As you well know it is worth considerably more than a mere shilling or two." She turned on her heel and went to walk out of the door as the little man hopped from foot to foot calling her back. She smiled to herself, turned and started to negotiate.

Ianto normally blended into the background quite well but had been propositioned by both genders, offered stolen goods and some little scrote had tried picking his empty pockets before Jenny came out of the shop. He didn't recognise her at first as she had changed and was now sporting a much finer empire line dress, a jaunty hat and was carrying a carpet bag which while seeing better days, looked better than the rug she had been using. She walked over and took his good arm leading him out of the alley before putting the bag down at the corner of the street.

"I left the other clothes to try and make the money go further." She said in explanation "I've got a few pennies spare and a change for you in here, lets find somewhere for you to rest." Ianto tried to protest but his mind was starting to fog again and he felt himself pulled onwards, over the river and starting up the hill to the far end of College Green. There wasn't much conversation as Ianto gazed round in wonderment, if he had been dumped here he would have recognised the place immediately, the cathedral facing the mayors chapel like some medieval confrontation. All that was missing was the curious 1950's Council 'House' which appeared to be a hill with medieval buildings on it. They stopped outside a hostelry slightly up the hill, it looked better than some closer to the river but didn't quite have the style of a Hilton.

"Shall we see if there's room at the inn?" she asked.

What was he supposed to say, he had no idea if this was good bad or indifferent, though he couldn't hear any sounds of fighting which had to be an improvement on some they had hurried past. Moving through the door the fug of the open fire and tobacco fumes hit him like a wall and his stomach rebelled again, Jenny moved to sit him on a stool before he fell to the floor.

Jenny took the worn kid skin gloves off and forced him to look at her so she could make a guess at his condition, she tried to remember the etiquette of the time and how she could move in the corset she was now trussed up in and finally plumped for a quick squeeze round his shoulders and a surreptitious place to lean as the bustling land lady came over. She looked him up and down, she quite often got the sick ones in the old days, come to use the spa down by the river but visitors there were few and far between now, more likely someone sick with some tropical fever from one of the ships in the dock and she didn't need dying people in her establishment. The woman exuded class though and she liked a bit of class, stranded gentry, foreign visitors, made the place look more refined and besides she could charge 'em more for the top room.

"Can I be of assistance." She asked trying to sound posh but with a heavy Bristol accent she sounded more like a comedy act.

"My husband and I require a room and board." She looked Ianto up and down again, he was trying his best to look alert but failing.

"Is he quite well?"

"We were set about by brigands on our way to London and we require somewhere quiet for him to rest and recuperate before we set off again." The explanation seemed to satisfy the woman who shouted for the pot boy to take the bag while she showed them upstairs and named a not too exorbitant price and explained the facilities, well the food and pointed out the chamber pot and bell before pocketing all the money Jenny had left to pay for the first night.

Ianto weaved as he stood, actually swayed in a figure eight, before Jenny gently pushed him to the bed.

"Get a bit of food into you then you can sleep till morning." She smiled pulling back an eyelid and quickly taking his pulse. "You need to drink as much as possible, but never drink the water unless it's been boiled. God that's one thing I've not missed."

Ianto looked at her as she pulled off the little hat and started poking viciously at the small fire in the grate.

"What?" she asked turning round

"You've got the same look Jack gets, I can't describe it."

"What are you on about?" she asked sitting next to him and patting his knee.

"Dunno, he always gets it when he does his 'everything changes' speech, the been there done that lack of wonderment when he sees a 50 foot jelly blob coming towards him."

"Difference is I have been here before, something I doubt even Time Agent Harkness has managed."

Ianto snorted as the door opened again with the girl carrying food and washing bowls. Jenny pointed the girl at the table and smiled, the girl didn't make any eye contact as she scuttled away. Jenny sniffed the bowl as she handed one to Ianto, eating on the bed wasn't exactly a done thing and she already felt naughty. She felt even worse when she realised, three spoonfuls in, that with one hand there was no way for Ianto to feed himself.

She quickly took the bowl back and sat him at the table, he could have felt like a small child, but there was something in the way she acted that made it feel better than that. Eating with his left hand seemed strange but with only a spoon to shovel in the thin but tasty stew he didn't seem to have too many problems. He encouraged her to repeat the plan she had devised to get enough cash to survive on till they could get back, the cufflink had been minor in comparison to the diamond jewellery that went next. Sparkling as she picked them out of her corset she mused on the fact that somewhere in South Africa the raw diamond that would become over 50 carats of bling in the 1840's were still far from being mined. Georgians went for size not sparkle and it would be a few years before people started judging a stone by cut and colour, but they would still provide creature comforts for a few weeks or years, after that he didn't want to think. Ianto sat back slightly more content now his belly had something in it and looked round the room, the open spitting fire struck him as dangerous but it was less than a generation before him that had endured it as a daily rite. His dad had boasted he could light a fire with one match and a newspaper to hold against the back draft.

Jenny brought one of the bowls of water over and placed it on the table, she gestured for him to take off the stolen jacket and his old shirt and when that proved too difficult she ripped what was left of the sleeve to the should to help him. When she finally laid bare the mangled mess that had been his right arm he felt himself gag, it was a mess of dark red congealed blood and blackened skin with bits of charred flesh and fabric. Lunch didn't feel so good now. She made soothing noises as she grabbed the tin from the bag and mixed the last of the morphine with the alien cure all.

"Good news is that it could be a lot worse. I can't see any infection and the way we've carried on it should be rampaging through your system by now."

"Thanks for that." Said Ianto rolling his eyes.

She positioned his arm over one of the bowls and started spooning water over his arm in attempt to clean it, he nearly hit the roof but stifled a scream by gripping the table very hard. His eyes started to water,

"You could have warned me." He said cuffing his eyes with his free hand.

"Any the anticipation of the pain to come would have made it better how?" she reasoned reaching over for a corked bottle and pulling the cork out with her teeth. "Careful, might be a bit rough." She said proffering the bottle.

He sniffed at the gin within then took a sip that nearly blew his head off before taking another glug. Jenny swiftly took the bottle off him,

"I need the rest of it." She kept spooning the water over the raw skin. It wasn't what the doctor ordered, the water could be teeming with bugs, the room was tidy but far from sterile but it was the best she could do. "Can you move you fingers?" she asked as she turned his arm over and started again.

It was painful and the skin cracked between his fingers, not that he felt much with a mixture of morphine and strong gin coursing through his veins.

"Is it going to scar?" he asked quietly as she removed the dish and threw the contents out of the window. She had the second look that didn't need words, the look that Owen used to use when he tested Jacks pulse unnecessarily.

"At home I might have been able to do something but here? It'll add to your rakish good looks." She added a wane smile as she grabbed a few handkerchiefs she had purchased with her first trade. She put them aside and motioned for Ianto to come over to the bed, throwing the covers open for him.

He shuffled over uncertainly as he was sure she wasn't finished but the call of a warm bed was very loud. Unfortunately the bed was anything but warm and stunningly uncomfortable, it sagged alarmingly towards the middle and he belatedly realised after stripping down to his boxers that it was a straw mattress. Jenny stifled a laugh at his face.

"Welcome to five star luxury, Georgian style." She put the bowl on the side of the bed as Ianto looked curiously at her.

"I suppose I could call it an adventure holiday for a few days." He said realising that wouldn't help to moan, he could put up with it for a few days.

"I bet this is better than some of the places in modern Bangkok." She grabbed the gin bottle.

"What are you doing with that." She put her hand on his good arm and waited till she had his attention.

"Once you're settled I'm going to go get some more money and by a few bits and bobs to make life a bit easier. I want you to rest, you haven't slept for a whole day, doctors orders."

Ianto nodded, eyeing up the gin suspiciously.

"Are you going out?"

"Yes, but I'll stay till you're asleep and won't be out too long, we need some supplies."

Ianto nodded, he couldn't fight the tiredness much longer and it felt so calming to be looked after as Jenny tucked the sheets and blankets round him.

"Can you take this?" she asked as she lined the gin bottle over his arm. Ianto had a flash back of the excruciating flame of pain the last time someone asked him the same question, the image of Jacks concerned face in the seconds before he had put his shoulder back in joint broke his last reserve, but he still nodded.

Luckily the fire and ice pain of the alcohol hitting the raw flesh hid the tears and Jennys quick and efficient methods meant that he soon had the arm covered placed gently under the covers. He whimpered slightly as she moved away from the bed to clear up but she quickly came back to sit on top of the covers and spoke gently about nothing to him, stroking his sweat soaked hair until she finally felt him drop off. She took a few more moments to take and audit of the last twelve hours. Idly she wondered where the other her was, it wouldn't do too meet herself on the street but there might be someway she could access her funds, no point in making life difficult she thought. She started picking backwards all the people she had been in the past 200 or so years and the horror of what she might have to live through again started to become a little too real and she gave into her own emotions. There was a tiny knock at the door as the serving girl asked if she could clear the bowls, Jenny stood quickly and moved to the window before calling the girl in.

By the time Ianto woke it was dark, for a few seconds he felt wonderful till reality hit and everything ached. He opened his eyes with a groan and was surprised at the orange glow from the fire and very little other light in the room.

"What time is it?" He asked

"About 8ish." She replied putting down the quill in her hand, quill thought Ianto, I'm definitely not in Kansas now he thought.

"You could have put the light on, I wouldn't have minded."

She held up a candle, "I did."

Ianto looked at the face behind the flickering light, it was etched with stress and the black circles under her eyes could hold even Jacks packing for a week in Antigua.

"Did you get what you needed?"

"Yep, supplies to last us a few weeks and enough cash to keep us till we decide the next move."

"Then I think you need to rest." He used what he thought was his no nonsense tone but it clearly wasn't.

"I'll just finish this, I'll check your arm and then I try."

"Arm's fine." He said waving it about and regretting it, but it wasn't too bad. "What else is there to do that's so urgent?"

"I'm writing to Jack."

Ianto took a beat to take it in.

"You have two hundred years to compose it, you look tired, come and rest."

Jenny smiled at him and picked up a plate with bread and cheese and came round to the side of the bed.

"I'm working on the premise that it is the writing that changes the future, not the receiving."

"So have you written where we are?" he asked tearing a lump from the large hunk of bread proffered.

"Not yet, I'm working on the equation."

"Right then put that on the paper you are sending him and then come to bed because we both need to be ready."

Of course, knowing where they were could be the key, she wasn't thinking straight anymore. She walked back over to the table and dipped the nib into the ink,

"Any other message?"

Ianto thought for a second, the obvious one was too obvious, final, something he could only say when there was no hope.

"Just tell him to hurry, I miss him."


	15. So far away

Thanks go to Nikki for giving me the impetus to go on…

Will also be uploading a shorter story in just two parts, check it out!

Gwen was torn between ripping the envelope open to find out what it contained and treating it with the reverence it so obviously deserved for making it so far. Jack had no qualms and shredded the outer wrapping as he ran down the stairs. Martha crowded over Gwen's shoulder trying to read the copperplate writing that had faded through the years, her hand shook as she began to understand what it was saying. Martha turned to Jack and went to read his letter but he snatched it away before she could see it, she made a distressed squeak and slapped her hands on her hips.

"Eyes only." He said snappily and sat on the desk facing her in an aggressive stance.

"Is someone going to tell me what happened?" asked Martha stuck between a team that was so developed that they could communicate without words. She felt like an outsider again.

"It's a letter from Jenny, it says that they both made it through the rift alive," she scanned the single sheet as Jack turned to a second page. "That they've made it to Bristol and she thinks that it is 1809."

Gwen's hand dropped to the desk as the two women gawped at each other, "I was only talking to her an hour ago now she's two hundred years away."

"Well that's good." Said Martha in a stronger voice than she thought possible at that time. "At least we know where they are."

"That doesn't bloody help though does it?" Gwen shouted angrily

Martha looked at Jack to prove her wrong, he finished reading the letter and took a deep breath in through in nose and looked up at Myfanwy circling round, Rhys shuffled round to his wife's side as she passed the letter to him to read.

"Gwen's right, knowing they are alive is the only thing we have at the moment."

"But how did they get here?" asked Martha fingering the post it that had flutter down to the desk, "I mean this is definitely Ianto's hand writing but these can't have been written till after.." she wasn't quite sure how to end that sentence, after your boyfriend got pulled into the Rift, after they disappeared, after what?

"I once saw this programme that described time as a ball of string, where any bit could touch each other." Said Rhys

"That was Quantum Leap and this is not cheesy Sci-Fi." Said Jack quietly,

"However I can't really think of a better way to describe it."

"Can someone use words of two syllables or less to describe what is happening here? Please." Asked Martha quietly.

"Wanna start with an easier question?" asked Jack flippantly then held up a hand in supplication. "The easy answer hasn't been invented yet, but it will be. The fact of the matter is that time travel is complicated, but possible, you just can't be in the same place at the same time as yourself." Rhys looked perplexed, Gwen and Martha were making mental notes. "You can't change your own future by knowing what it is but you can interact with it." Jack paused and ran his hands through his hair. "For once can you please just take it that I know more than I'm telling and trust me. Please."

"I also heard this other thing on Radio Four last week," Gwen put her hand over her husbands but he kept on going. "they said that time can't really exist because to measure it you have to have a static point and the point of time is that it's never static it flows, but no one knows what it flows through." He paused for breath but Jack butted in.

"Something like that." Said Jack with a very small nod.

Gwen looked amazed at her lummox of a husband, no more amazed than him, she didn't even know he listened to Radio 4.

Martha cleared her throat, "Practically, how did those letters get here?"

"Simple, Jenny wrote them 200 years ago, left them with a solicitor and they delivered them," he picked up the post-it note "About five years ago with a note to Suzie to time lock them for today, Ianto followed the instructions and put them on our desk before we left this afternoon."

"So why didn't he tell us they were here, we could have stopped it all from happening." Pouted Gwen,

"Because he didn't put them there till the this afternoon that happened after this evening." Martha nodded "And we're at the centre of the storm." She winked at Jack, remembering the last time they were at the centre of a time storm, reversing the year that never was.

"Well I'm glad you know what he's talking about." Said Gwen now turning sulky.

"At this point I'm happy I'm too thick to know what's going on, does anyone want coffee?" Asked Rhys.

They all rolled their eyes but the ladies nodded, anything with caffeine had to be useful at the moment.

"Instant's in the top right cupboard." Said Jack standing up again. It was everyone's guilty secret, the tin of freeze dried zing, besides Jack could divorce the taste of that stuff from the wonder in a mug that his best friend and lover could provide, he wanted to keep hold of that memory a while longer.

"Where you going?" asked Gwen

"Got calls to make, why don't you use all your police tracking skills and find our missing agents?" he knew it was futile but he needed to keep her quiet. Gwen nodded and started telling Martha what resources she needed.

Jack cabined himself away in his office, the door was unusually closed tight and every now and then Jack's shadow paced across the window, Rhys began to snore loudly on the sofa and Gwen and Martha worked through census records and old parish records finding very little.

"It's really weird, like Ianto and Jenny are living a life parallel but two hundred years apart." Said Gwen looking at the paltry records they had.

"From what Jack said I suppose they are." Said Martha sitting back, she sniffed and wrinkled her nose and looked at her watch. "I need a shower, and change of clothes, much as I like black - these trousers do make my backside look massive." She stood up and wiggled at Gwen who laughed,

"That was one thing I was glad to see the back of when I left the force, practicality isn't flattering." They laughed and Rhys snorted in his sleep from the sofa.

"I'll bring some bacon butties back, why don't you try and rest you look done in." Said Martha solicitously, she worried about the amount of work they all took on and Jacks inability to hire anyone to replace Tosh and Owen. She had hoped that taking on the new medic would relieve some of the workload not add to it, at least Ianto wasn't alone she thought to herself. Gwen give a smile that didn't even reach her cheeks and picked a small mirror out of her desk drawer, the face staring back was haggard and the mascara still ran in streaks down her face, she looked down as she seemed to realise she was still in an evening gown too.

"I'll just go and change myself." She said waving to Martha as she went out the door. Jack watched from just far enough back in his office where he couldn't be seen, hands folded over his chest his face grim.

Gwen crept back up from the depths of Torchwood, face washed and clothes changed into something more appropriate. The gown was ruined but she couldn't just dump it in the bin so instead she put it on a hanger and left it on one of the hooks that lined the wall. She went to the kitchen and turned the kettle on for tea and pulled the team mugs out of the cupboard, replacing Ianto's and getting a guest one out for Rhys, he would have a bad back when he woke up and she intended packing him off to watch rugby or something while she tackled the problems they were facing. She roughly woke him, helped him to a sitting position and sat with him for two minutes while he drank the tea, asbestos gob he always boasted, and then listened to him grump at being packed off before seeing him out of the dank underworld via the tourist office. It seemed strange that it was a sunny but cold morning now, too early for all but the hardiest dog walkers,

She went back into the Hub, it didn't feel quite so cold in there now, and poured the bottom of the stewed pot into Jacks stripy mug. So strong you can melt a spoon in it, there was something about the uniformed services that seemed to make tea strength a competition. Andy always manked if the ph of the tea was anything more than about two, she allowed an image of the dashing RAF Jack waiting by his spitfire mug of tea in hand to flit past, then it shattered as she realised she didn't know if Jack really did that any of the three times he had been in war torn Britain, that she knew of. She walked over to the stairs and quietly walked up to his office, she tapped on the glass and he looked up, she took it as an invitation.

"How are you holding up Jack?" she asked gently.

Every time she managed it, thought Jack, there was something about the way she phrased her questions, spoke the words that could break any veneer of steely indifference. Seconds later he found himself wrapped up in Gwen's embrace, his cheek pressed gently against the soft washing machine fresh fabric of her t-shirt and a bandaged hand running gently in and out of his hair line. He knew without looking she would be crying too.

"We can get them back, we know more about the Rift Manipulator now, perhaps we can control it." She suggested quietly.

"You know that isn't an option." He said quietly pulling away.

"There has to be something we can do." She said in despair.

"I loose everyone in the end, I just didn't think it would be so soon."

"What, you're just going to sit there and let it happen?" she was staring to shout.

"You mean I would be better off shooting the boss and unleashing the destroyer of nations?" He raised an eyebrow which would normally look cute but made him look menacing at that point. Gwen looked horror struck and quickly turned to leave before she broke down completely, it was an evil move and Jack knew it. As soon as the words had left his mouth he regretted them, taking this out on Gwen was not helpful and he darted out from behind his desk catching her as they reached the floor of the Hub.

"Don't you even dare touch me Captain Jack Bloody Harkness, do you think you have the monopoly on feelings here?" She turned and gave him her blackest look. "Just because you are shagging him you do not have the right to all the emotion here. Ianto was, is my friend and I want him back."

They stood squaring up across the computer bay, this was why Jack had shied away from leading Torchwood for so long. It wasn't that he didn't enjoy leadership, and even though he said so himself, he was pretty damn good at it. It was just Torchwood was impossible.

"Look this is hard to take in I know but we can not do anything." Gwen went to butt in and he held up his hand, she stopped, for once she stopped he thought. "However they can, Jenny wrote down a few ideas but I get the idea she was kinda tired, perhaps the next letter will be more positive, if there are two people in this world that can cope it's Ianto and Jenny."

"What if there is no letter?" asked Gwen quietly

"I know there is." He said pointing down at Ianto's desk, there was a green file stamped with Jacks name and the date across it.

"Whoa. That was not there when I came down here." She said backing away from the desk, green was Ianto's filing code for anything that came out of section Seven Alpha, the zone that held the time locked files like Tommy's instructions. It was small but significant as it was nearly always a portent of some sort of Rift event, it had a little alarm linked to Ianto's computer if a lock opened and he had a whiteboard with the known upcoming openings. They held everything from racing tips (good for placing bets and expanding the Torchwood coffers) to possible Armageddon events like Tommy. Rationally Gwen would later place this somewhere in the middle.

"Get used to it over the next few days, strange things will happen while they explore their ways home." Jack picked up the file and found a letter that had been badly burnt and a note explaining it had been in a cellar of a building that had been hit by the Luftwaffe, Jack silently prayed that Jenny had the forethought to back everything up.

"So we get letters, they hang round in Ye Olde Bristol for a few days they come home?" she asked

"Best case scenario yes, might have to look out for Rift openings, if we could find the reason it happened in that nasty wine bar we might be able to retroengineer something to smooth the journey."

"And the worst case?"

"I have to hang round this tiny little hamlet for the next 200 years till Jenny catches up with us last night and you won't even know this happened."

She let the slight on her city go past as pent up emotion,

"And you will remember?" she asked stepping close again

"One of the problems of being a fixed point in time and space, see the world really does revolve around me." He gave a small shudder and smiled in that lopsided way that could tell someone they were fine, someone he didn't believe their story or just plain creep people out, Gwen saw through it as his one and only sign of insecurity.

She went back to holding him and he rested his chin on her head closing his eyes, 200 years alone, 200 years waiting, 200 years imagining all the different things that could happen to stop her getting back along the way, wars, disease, crime. He knew he wouldn't be able to look at another man, or woman, knowing Ianto was going to be coming back to him, perhaps he should just freeze himself now.

"It'll be alright Jack, we'll cope together, we always do." Said Gwen to fill the void. Jack appreciated the sentiment but it was hollow, if this went to it's end game Gwen would be gone in less than half the time it took to play out. Assuming time was running parallel, which he could be fairly certain it wasn't, he would watch her grow old and wonder if Ianto was doing the same thing, watch her die, knowing Ianto probably had a much shorter time without the technological advances and medicine of today. He would have to try and mentally lock away the time line that took Jenny past the Crimean, Boer, first, second and every other war and hope she had the sense to stay away this time. He knew that she would have the sense not to interfere with the fixed events but she would want to change the little events, improve the hospitals, save the dieing, help the needy because he knew she was much more honourable than him. He would rush to the Klondike, grab land in the middle of the future LA, he would make sure the bullet never fired at ArchDuke Ferdinand, find the Beer Keller in Munich and lay in wait. He would change the entire future of the world but for the fact it would stop him meeting Ianto again, so perhaps he would just go along with it.

"Right then." Said Gwen pulling away, cuffing her eyes and dragging the mascara away again. "I'll be in the conference room looking at all the stuff we have about that shitty little wine bar." Jack nodded, he would tell her to rest but she wouldn't listen. If she hadn't fallen asleep in one of the conference room chairs in an hour or so he would take her one of is own special tea blends and guide her back to the sofa, so much better for the neck.


	16. Different Worlds

Ianto woke and for one glorious moment he felt nothing, then he went to feel the bed beside him and realised he was wrong on two counts. Firstly the movement of his injured arm sent lancing pains up his arm and hence to the rest of his battered body and when his arm connected it was only with empty sheets. He let out a small moan, pain, frustration he wasn't sure, but as he opened his eyes he saw the shadow by the window was turning to face him.

"Good Morning sleepy head." She said gently and came and sat on the bed, taking his pulse and checking his temperature with the back of her hand on his forehead.

"What time is it?" he asked struggling to move to a sitting position on the rough mattress.

"Early, before six I think I couldn't see the town clock."

Jenny stood up and stoked the fire, throwing a few lumps of coal into the mix, before taking a metal tin out of the embers and dipping a finger in. Seemingly satisfied she poured a little into a rough looking glass and then unstoppered a small bottle and added a few drops.

"Here, will ease the pain a bit." Ianto nearly spat out the disgusting mixture but he persevered and gulped the rest down in one go.

"I take it you have just dosed me up with laudanum?" He asked in his own prosaic manner.

"Sorry, paracetemol hasn't been invented yet, besides it's only a small dose it'll help I promise."

Ianto knew not to move for a few minutes, he could remember the time when he'd broken his leg as a child and they gave him morphine for the pain, looking back he was coping with the pain but the dizziness and vomiting after the shot to help him was horrendous. Jenny pulled the shawl tighter around her shoulders and crawled back under the covers of the bed next to him, placing his arm back across his lap. She gave him a gentle hug and let him put his head on her shoulder while he tried to compose himself.

"You should go and look at the street outside, I'd forgotten what the word looked like without cars. No yellow lines, no signs telling you that you should go there or can't do this. The streets have real pavements, none of that nasty patchwork tarmac and people stop and talk, live is lived so much slower, granted the pie man was going at a run, but men still tip their hats, ladies wear gloves." She revelled in the glorious silence for a few seconds.

"Childhood labour, dysentery, slavery." Replied Ianto with a slight hint of sarcasm.

"No were past slavery now, just, though I should imagine if we went down the dock there will be plenty of Captains willing to risk the fine to bring a few blacks back for penny a year wages." She could feel Ianto scowl at her casual use of racist language but for most of her life it had been just a fact of existence, she pondered on some of the things she had said and done in the past that didn't fit with the new moral code and decided she would shame herself into a quivering mess if she let herself.

"Shall I ring for breakfast?" she asked as she felt Ianto squirming against her.

"I really need the bathroom first." He said coyly.

"Pot's under the bed." She smiled at him and got up to pull the bell cord. Ianto looked round desperately, there was no privacy, not even a screen.

"Wait a second, what if, well you know, what if the maid walks in while I'm…"

"She won't be bothered, she'll see it all the time, Ianto you've got to get into a different frame of mind what we see as wrong in two hundred years time could be perfectly acceptable here, and things you would do as a matter of course would be tantamount to heresy here."

"I think having a slash in public is still wrong, especially as I'm wearing a dress." He said pulling at the nightgown as he went to get out of the bed, it was so cold without central heating he wondered if he would even be able to find the apparatus required. Jenny rolled her eyes and went back to gaze out of the window, the urgent facts of nature forced Ianto to give in, thank god for Thomas Crapper he thought insanely.

Ianto recomposed himself as the maid tapped nervously on the door and came in curtseying like a bobbing toy, she must have been all of 15. He pushed the offending chamber pot under the bed with his toe as she went to leave the room which she took to be a sign of disapproval on the speed of her work and she reached round him to take it away. Ianto stepped back and was about to apologise, though he wasn't really sure what for. Jenny stepped forward with a heavy brocade dressing gown and steered him towards the window,

"Relax Ianto, there is nothing you can do at the moment so calm down, enjoy the ride." She gentle manipulated her lithe fingers around his neck and shoulders as he looked down on to the slightly misty streets below. It was a different scene, the buildings were all low and the sound of horses' hooves came through the ill fitting single pane of glass.

"So what's the plan?" He asked gazing out in wonder.

"I was thinking Australia, land of opportunity, be hard work but I won't meet myself for another 50 or so years. We can set up as a couple or brother and sister if you fancy striking out on your own when the mood takes you, but I'll look after you as long as you need it." She continued rubbing his shoulders as he tensed up and spun round to stare at her.

"What?" he sounded panicked, "I was talking about today, the next week, I was hoping we wouldn't have to get as far as running to the other side of the planet."

"Ah of course." She said turning him back round again and gently starting to rub again, "Sorry racing ahead again. Today I'll do some more work on my equations and see if I can make it work, you need to rest, an underrated past time for the recently injured, then this afternoon I'll take you to the tailor get you some clothing that fits."

"You've already given up haven't you?" he said bleakly, "we're stuck out of time and no one knows we're here."

"No Ianto, I haven't given up but we need to aim for the best and plan for the worst, I'm sure Jack and Gwen are doing anything they can but I don't know whether the Rift has ever been reverse engineered before." Ianto said nothing, he was thinking about the hell he had unleashed last time he had played with the Rift manipulator. "I'm trying to invent time travel a few centuries too early, theoretically we know it's possible because Jack has the pocket sized manipulator but using pieces of paper and just my memory it might be a tall order."

Ianto sighed gently, she was right of course, nothing was certain round the Rift.

"I wonder how we ended up here?"

"Well that is something we might need to find out, give me today and then we'll see."

If he wasn't so tired he would be frustrated, he wasn't a sit round type of guy but there was an odd sort of sense in what she was saying. The less they interacted with the world the less they would change for the future. He looked at the meagre spread on the small table and wanted to weep, he couldn't even have the hearty meal of the condemned, mind you with that thought his stomach flipped and he was glad. Jenny was describing the meal structure of pre Victorian Britain with gusto, she was loving all of this, just like Jack would. Finally he became aware that she was talking to him, he looked up blankly for a second and then saw leather bound book in her hand.

"This should keep you interested for a few hours, first edition so look after it."

Ianto took the volume, turning it over in his hand, a pristine copy of the Rime of the Ancient Mariner, not exactly a John Grisham but now he had the time to appreciate it perhaps it would be alright. Meekly he submitted to returning to bed and being tucked in as Jenny cleared the table and picked up the paper and ink of the night before and started scratching away, surreptitiously picking the rolled, paper thin, clear rift monitor and using it in short bursts to preserve the battery and to ensure that the maid didn't see it when she came back to clear.

"I've gone over the readings we've been taking the last few weeks and tried to find as much information on the anomaly you called a time bubble." Said Gwen playing the computer display in front of her like a fine instrument. Apple would kill to get there hands on the touch screen technology they had been using for years, mind you all they would have to do was ask their boss, technology from a garage indeed thought Jack, more like another galaxy.

"And I've been looking at the work that Jenny had been doing on the elm fragments that had been dumped round Cardiff." Said Martha, who now looked less ready for action in tight jeans and hair in a loose pony tail than combats but much more like the cosmological adventurer Jack remembered.

"Any correlation?" asked Jack standing close to the screen, back to the room, staring at the different documents they had both added

"Yes," said Gwen cagily. "Jenny had worked out that the trees were from about the place and time they have ended up."

"Figures." Said Jack absent mindedly, though whether this was about the proximity or the fact she had done the digging in the first place wasn't made clear. "These incursions aren't random," he traced the timelines with his finger on screen, "this has got to be a who or what."

"Sergeant Quillam had some interesting data when I called in." Said Martha advancing a photocopy towards both of them "Got the idea from the paper Tosh submitted to the International Rift Protection Conference that evidenced the negative spikes."

"I didn't know that got tabled, I thought I pulled it." Said Jack looking sideways at her.

"Now is not the time for isolationism Jack." Said Gwen putting a hand on his, she rubbed her thumb over his knuckles feeling the tension in his frame.

Jack and Gwen looked at the chart on the paper as Martha plugged in a data stick.

"So you think something came through when Ianto was sucked back?" asked Gwen

"Yep." Replied Martha as she hit enter on the keyboard.

A strange sound filled the room for a few seconds then stopped, it repeated and stopped again. Martha halted the loop as they both crinkled their faces, it was like a cross between fingers down a blackboard and smashing china.

"Is that the two negative spikes either side of the Rift event?" asked Jack trying to shake the sound from his head while simultaneously trying to place it with something he had heard before. Martha shook her head

"No the second spike is an energy release but we can't work out what it is yet."

"What's the small positive spike before the sound wave?" asked Gwen, she had never quite got her head around why the negative spike meant something had arrived through the Rift and a positive one indicated something had been snatched away. Tosh had spent one very long and boring afternoon trying to explain it all, using the constructive and destructive boundaries of plate tectonics as a "simple" model. She had finally been rescued by Owen demanding that Tosh stop speaking 'twaddle' before he fed the hamster shaped screen cleaner that had appeared on her desk during the missing days to Myfanwy. Gwen missed those boring days now.

"So something is pulled out, the Rift opens and we hear their world then they put back whatever they've taken?" summarised Jack.

"Possibly not exactly the same thing but something very similar." Said Martha nodding.

"So do we have a guess that who or what ever is sniffing the air of the 21st century is then spitting it back out again." Said Gwen indignantly.

"Perhaps it isn't what they are looking for and they think no one will notice if they put it back." Said Martha trying to sound soothing but actually feeling rather angry at Gwen for assuming everything was a personal slight against her beloved Cardiff, she really needed to get off world and put things in perspective.

"Actually I think it might be the backwash from the exhaust system, the energy profile is a little different, slightly more heat, bit more motive force, like a boy racer and his bean can converter." Said Jack who had long learnt to filter out Gwen and her 'angry of Cardiff' rants, "The tree data shows a little more energy so perhaps these things just got caught in the exhaust and it isn't intentional at all."

They all sat cogitating the use of any of their last twenty minutes work until Gwen's despondent voice filled the room again.

"So none of this can help us find them then."

"I wouldn't say none, you can see what particulate matter you find on the tree trunk in the basement, go back to the scene of the incident see if there is any sort of residual matter around. Perhaps of we can get an odd trace element we can at least work out what side of the solar system they're from and then see if there is anyway of contacting them." Replied Jack thinking and talking at the same time, giving his voice a sort of far away lilt.

"But how do contact someone in the past Jack?" asked Gwen not making the connections

"We're still classed as off limits to tourists, they shouldn't even be there no one will want to admit to contacting an F-class planet let alone landing there." Martha was starting to dredge into interstellar law, something she found very boring on the UNIT induction course.

"They could be refugees or broken down, perhaps they just got the timing wrong – how many times did the TARDIS overshoot?" Jack was holding a reasonable conversation about the relative merits of time travel with Martha, Gwen wasn't happy.

"Whooh, whooh, stop there, you mean there is some intergalactic stellar court out there deciding what planets all these space aliens whizzing about in their spaceships can visit. What are we Butlins for little green men?"

"Yep" they both replied in unison,

"Hokrala Corps ring any bells?" asked Jack.

Gwen shuddered and sat back poleaxed, just as she thought she had things sussed.

"I'll start on the tree trunk." Said Martha sliding out of the seat, she didn't want to be in the room when Jack started on the birds and the bees of alien existence with Gwen.


	17. Space and Time

Jack came back into the main area of the Hub brandishing a screen capture of the vaults and tapped away at the vast array of screens round Tosh's old station. Martha raised an eyebrow at the furious bashing and swivelled round in her chair, arms crossed. Jack didn't seem to notice Gwen was sleep across her own keyboard. Jack taped the image, which Martha now realised was on an old fashioned acetate projector sheet, across the screen and it matched exactly.

"It's my guess if they send any more information that it now won't arrive until after the original them left so Ianto can't deliver them to my desk. So if anything else arrives from the past that is being rewritten it will probably stay down there till one of us goes down there."

"And because we're not likely to know what it looked like anyway we might not notice the difference and miss something. I get it." She said looking at the dingy vaults, she wouldn't be going down there without a very good reason anyway.

"Exactly, every time it changes we'll need a new image though." Jack went to tap Gwen on the shoulder to excite her with his own brilliance as Martha shook her head. He forgot she had been up 36 hours straight now.

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

The nights seemed to sweep in awfully fast when there was no electricity, the candle light hardly pierced the gloom and the lack of street lights made the curtain of coal and wood smoke from the fires of Bristol seem much thicker. Ianto had only been out once in three days to see the tailors, he had chosen an off the peg suit to be altered to his exacting requirements and ordered another to be made from scratch. At the time he had thought it an extravagance because he didn't expect to be here but as the hours turned to days without an answer he was beginning to despair.

"How thick is the modulating cog in the Rift Manipulator?" Asked Jenny rather exuberantly

"Which one, the buffed steel one or the strange blue metal one?"

"Whichever is lower in the workings."

And so the questions seemed to go on, Ianto was for once thankful that he was nearly savant about the technology in the Hub. In the days when Jack had first disappeared they had re-built the place during the day while Ianto had paced the corridors silently on the nights, eventually deciding to clean and calibrate the manipulator, the water tower, build an eco system monitor for the hot house and re-programme the space invader in the corner so whenever Owen got the highest score it showed his name. Then they spent a few miserable days in the Himalayas looking for a forgotten artefact used by Torchwood Delhi, though according to Jack and Martha that could have been months.

Ianto spent a lot of time thinking, and sleeping, punctuated by long and involved conversations with Jenny about where they could go and the things they could change, knowing that they were in fact going to have to tip toe round changing nothing. Without myriads of technology and a slightly hormonal super computer Ianto was helpless, without the SUV a site visit to the area Jenny had already identified as the probable source would take hours if not days. That would be of course if they could work out the spot without a GPS rig and mapping that was based more on pretty pictures than proper cartography.

He sighed loudly and Jenny looked up, she had been so engrossed in completing the reverse calculation that she had all but forgotten Ianto was bundled up in the bed.

"What's up Petal?" she asked turning to face the bed.

"Just thinking, wondering what happened to Jack and Gwen, if they even exist."

"Don't tie yourself up in knots Ianto, there's not much you can do from here."

"But I know what it's like when someone just vanishes, you tell yourself to move on but you can't, you keep thinking they'll be back soon, you choose things that they would like, you don't stop looking and I want Jack to get on with living, he would have to one day anyway, living forever searching would be heartbreaking."

He looked like a kicked puppy. Jenny put the pen down, capped the ink and moved back to the bed, she put the candle down on the counterpane and pulled him in again.

"I don't even have a photo as I didn't bring my wallet that night, Jack said it spoilt the line of my jacket and everything was paid for anyway." He could feel the tears welling up, this wasn't like him, he hid behind a mask in public.

"You can still contact him, let him know how you feel even if he can't talk back and there's a first. You never know if I get this right he might never even realise we've gone."

Ianto took a few deep breaths to calm himself down and thought about what he would want to say. He was, as Jack had often told him, a man of few words and many emotions. He looked at the table and saw the few sheets of paper there, Jenny hadn't bought much as it was an expensive commodity and didn't want to draw attention to herself but there was enough for a short note, using the pen was a different matter, constantly dipping it in ink, scraping it across the paper, perhaps he was here to invent the fountain pen. Seeing his eyes flicker about Jenny lightly played her fingers against the exposed fingertips of his ruined hand.

"You talk, I'll write." She said moving back to the table.

Ianto pulled himself out of the bed and dragged the covers with him to the other chair, he was freezing - the heat of the fire hardly reaching into the room.

"Tell you what, we write this and tomorrow I have a treat for you. Being cooped up in here isn't doing either of us any good."

Ianto opened his mouth then closed it again, he was never any good at baring his soul to Jack and through a third party was going to be really difficult. She held his left hand in her own across the table.

"Just start Ianto, we can cross it out if you don't like it, forget it's me, just think of me as a Quick Quotes Quill."

He laughed as closed his eyes, perhaps if he imagined Jacks face he could just talk to him.

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

Gwen woke with a start, a slight dribble of drool escaping onto the hard desk that seemed stuck to her face. Martha was looking at the CCTV of the vault and shouting for Jack. She peeled her head off the desk as Jack appeared at a run, looked at the screen and then sprinted off towards the bowels of Torchwood. She scrubbed at her hair and looked at Martha.

"New time locked box just appeared." She said, which perked Gwen up.

The ladies sat in edgy silence watching the screen as Jack ran into the achieve and tore open the new box, reading the accession card before opening the letter inside, even through the grainy footage they could see his hands shaking, he took a step back and then slowly slid down the shelves to the floor. They looked at each other and then as one started off down to the archive. They had thundered down the echoing corridors, heels snapping against the ancient concrete floor, to reach the room better know by Ianto as the 'Time Store'. The heavy blast door, once placed there to make sure the room was water tight if the Bay ever got into the recesses of Torchwood, was still ajar enough for the women to slide in and then run along the pressed metal shelves till they saw Jack crumpled on the floor. Gwen barged Martha out of the way in a style that would have had Cardiff Arms Park roaring their approval and hunkered down next to him, wrapping an arm around him. Martha delicately stepped over Gwen and round to the other side of Jack and put her hand on his arm.

The old and fragile paper had been crumpled in one hand while his head was resting on the other arm he had curled round his knees. While Gwen whispered soothing words Martha gently extricated the letter from his grip and smoothed it on the floor before examining the contents of the box and wrapping for clues. The accession card was in Jacks own writing from the end of the last century and even though the faded address was for the leader of Torchwood Three, dated today, the envelope inside was addressed directly to Jack Harkness. Gwen went to snatch the paper from the floor but Martha moved it slightly out of reach, the women scowled at each other.

"What's in the letter Jack?" asked Martha quietly, she knew how jealously Jack guarded his privacy.

His hand made a whirling motion that suggested that he didn't care and Martha pushed the letter towards Gwen.

_Dear Jack,_

_Jenny has kindly offered to write this letter for me as I want to reassure you I am ok, I am I really am. I would write myself but I've already broken one of the nibs and my grip isn't as good as it could be presently. _

_I hope you are keeping well, Jenny thinks you will be getting this in some sort of real time from when we left, she has a complicated system of passing the letters we write from solicitor to bank to solicitor so they never guess the truth. Don't worry about us Jack, I am starting to get why you enjoy travelling in time so much but I am glad I have such a knowledgeable guide. _

_I know you will be doing everything to get us back, but if it isn't possible I want you to move on and life your life and think of me only in passing. Jenny is working day and night to come up with a solution here and she writes to you every night with the results in the hope you can use it. We haven't given up but it is fun talking about all the events we know will happen and how we are going to be there, Queen Victoria's Coronation, Waterloo sounds fun and I'm wondering how I can get to Rugby in time to see Webb-Ellis invent the beautiful game. _

_You know what I want to say but it seems so final, Jack you have become everything to me and will be my reason to carry on. _

_See you soon Cariad._

_Ianto_

"He's given up." Said Jack muffled by his position.

Martha rubbed his shoulders, "I don't think that, I just think he is telling you that you shouldn't feel guilty for what happened."

Jack lifted his head and showed the reddened eyes that gave away his tears, Gwen offered a paper hankie and carried on crying herself.

"I prefer the real thing." he said pulling out a crisp white cotton one.

"Martha's right you know, Ianto and I have spent ages talking about this, he was always really worried about you after what happened to Tosh and Owen. But we still have time to get them back, I don't think we should give up yet." Gwen managed to pull herself together, a trick she had practiced many times over the past few months,

"I can't loose anyone else." He said simply.

"Right then, lets get on and find them." Said Martha standing up, she knew Jack of old and the best way to sort him out was to give him something to do, preferably telling other people how they should do it. She held a hand out to pull him up, Gwen sort of gave her a sideways glance then caught on and stood up on the other side.

Just as Jack took the proffered hands the floor started rumbling and the air seemed to shimmy as both ladies fell to their knees, Jack was immediately en-point.

"What just happened?" asked Martha shaking her head. Gwen had whipped the PDA out of her back pocket that seemed to be permanently sited there.

"Isn't Rift activity." Said Gwen and kept tapping at the screen.

Jack shook his head, Gwen was turning into Toshiko with her over reliance on technology and the computer – he would have to have words when all this was over, if it ever was.

"Timeshift." He said looking round for the reason, pushing himself up and offering a hand to Gwen and Martha in a reversal of the position a few minutes before.

"Oh like the Valliant, centre of the storm." Said Martha while Gwen looked a little perplexed.

"Anyone see what looks different?" asked Jack, starting to sound much more like his old self again. Gwen sung the PDA around again as Martha and Jack systematically eyeballed the racks of boxes around them.

"Meason energy at five o'clock." Barked Gwen using her 'in control' voice, Jack reassessed his thoughts on the use of technology. He looked at where Gwen was pointing and ran his finger along the shelves until he found one with that days date on it. Bingo.

He pulled the tin off the shelf, it was made of brown painted metal that was reminiscent of a cartridge case, it felt warm where all the others were as cold as the store around them, this really was the eye of the storm. He popped the catch and had difficulty opening the top as it had rusted shut in all the years it had stood on this shelf, even though it had only been there seconds, and pulled out the internal canister. This one had been catalogued in the 1930's, Jenny was certainly doing her level best to confuse the enemy within and with the secret this baby held she certainly needed to. The paper was in very bad condition as he handled the envelope and sealed with a very official looking black wax seal.

"Don't open it down here Jack, it doesn't look like it will be able to take too much movement." Said Martha putting a delicate hand on his arm, Jack agreed, he needed a flat surface in a draft free room, the board room would be perfect. Reverently he placed the papers back in the box and then grabbed both the women in for a bear hug.

"Team Torchwood to the rescue!" he said dramatically and kissed the tops of their heads. They beamed, the tears and despair of moments before forgotten, Jack placed the canister in Gwens arms and patted Martha on the back and they started back towards the main floor chattering away. Jack shoved his hands in his pockets and kicked the dirt free floor, Ianto wouldn't allow dust to settle in his precious archives.

He moved backwards to where the letter had been left on the floor, carefully he smoothed out the paper and dabbed the spot of water that could have been tears or sweat and then folded it reverently along the original creases. Placing it back in the torn envelope he pressed it into shape and placed it in the breast pocket of his shirt. Jack would defy anyone who called him soppy but he would allow himself this one indulgence, just till Ianto returned.


	18. Putting it together

"Jack. Head" snapped Gwen wielding what looked like an ancient bellows camera. Jack responded by grunting, he didn't like admitting that someone elses work was more important than his but the 'photos' Gwen was taking would allow the computer to do a lot more of the leg work on turning the mass of numbers and mathematical symbols into something useful. Rule number five, or possibly seven – Jack never used the same order, most things are not what they seem and even things that were what they seemed a few minutes ago might not be now, rule seven B, or was it five B, of course now extended this rule to people. He'd added this personal change after Ianto had proved so duplicitous, mild, gentle archivist that stored monsters in the basement. Of course he had again added rule seventeen to the list of things that you should never do in Torchwood, judge a book by it's contents, for all Ianto had endangered the world and never truly repented for that minor misdemeanor, still insisting he loved Lisa till the end, Jack knew he would now turn the world inside out to see him one more time.

Gwen took the imaging machine out of the boardroom and down to the main Hub, the atmosphere was so tense she needed to scream, it was about this time Ianto normally just magically appeared with strong coffee. She plonked herself down in her chair and threw her head back wanting it all to go away for a few minutes. She pulled herself up short, that was awful, wishing that Ianto and Jenny would go away, she scrubbed her face with her hand and sat forward as Martha called over about coffee. Perhaps it wasn't Ianto that was magical but the Hub. Gwen gratefully accepted the paper cup with the sea fairy on the side, Jack reckoned he'd once met the model for the original two tailed symbol of Starbucks and helped her sue for image rights. With Jack she never knew what was true and what was fantasy but he had once said he didn't need to make things up any more so who knows? She sniffed the strong brew, Martha had obviously taken the double shot option, and sighed this was true addiction pure and simple, but she liked it. Martha shot a look upstairs and Gwen nodded, rather her than me she thought, she didn't think Jack would ever have got so rattled and she didn't want to get on the wrong end of it.

Martha pushed open the door with her foot and placed the coffee at Jacks left hand and looked over his shoulder at the crumbly, yellowed paper.

"Pen." Snapped Jack holding out his right hand. Martha looked round and couldn't see a pen so she fished around in her pockets and Jack started pulling one of the old fashioned blotter pads towards him. Finally she found a biro and handed to him.

"Not that one, I want my fountain pen." Said Jack

"What did you last servant die of?" sniped Martha, realising what she had said as soon as the words had left her lips.

Jack turned to look at her with soulful eyes which reminded her of not much less than a kicked puppy. "Sorry Martha, it's just Ianto always knows what I want."

She went behind him, pushing the blotter closer to hand and started kneading his neck, a gesture he had always appreciated in the TARDIS. Jack started scratching across the paper, scribbling and starting again.

"These figures make no sense." Said Jack putting the pen down.

"Algebra was never my strong point." Said Martha apologetically.

"See here," Jack pointed at the third row down "That's the Einstein Diffusion Equation and this one is the Howird Standard, it hasn't been discovered yet."

Gwen burst through the door, "Jack, you've got to see this." The two original occupants glared at the interruption as Gwen brought up the newly inputted figures.

"Jack I'm afraid it's all just crap"

They all looked at the figures the computer was swirling round occasionally seemingly slotting them in a place.

"This Jenny is fairly clever right?" asked Martha, they both nodded slowly, Jack wondered if they would ever be able to comprehend how smart that alien brain was. "So she's not likely to send you something that obviously won't work."

"And she wouldn't send something that the old Torchwood could use." Said Gwen quickly getting the line of thought Martha was using.

"So she's sent it in some sort of code. Atta Girl Jenny." Said Jack with a smile "Now how the hell do we solve it?"

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

Ianto was beginning to see the reason that the upper classes of pre Great War Britain had servants, so many layers of clothes and so little to make it easy, if he was round here much longer he would have to invent the zip. Finally Jenny had announced she was ready, she looked like Becky Sharpe in the latest TV revival of Vanity Fair, she had gone to town on the wardrobe, apparently reveling in the old styles that she had once helped to set. The crisp air assaulted Iantos senses as they came through the side door that led to the street. It hadn't lost any of its pungency and he nearly went straight into the horse dung on the edge of the nearly nonexistent pavement as he gazed around him.

"Same sky Ianto it doesn't change. You need to start watching where you're going in the here and now." Chided Jenny gently and pulled him back to her side. "Head up, shoulders back and strut like you own the place."

It was difficult not to gawp at the new world around him, he had so many questions that he felt like a three year old, patiently she answered as they walked slowly through the higher town and into Clifton.

"Do you think that Jack will work it all out?" asked Ianto suddenly. In three stir crazy days they had worked out between them the most insanely complicated way of getting the information across the years without being intercepted. Jenny had been just about to seal the letter when Ianto had stopped her with a shout.

"We can't send it like that, what if Hartman intercepts Jacks' post, or if Holdroyd finds it first? We can't give the old regime the ability to control the Rift, the Ghost Shift would have been a reality within seconds." Ianto shuddered at the thought and had to take a few deep breaths, which had Jenny running straight over to take his temperature. Who was it who said that being so mad kept them sane? It was only the manic way they contrived to keep the results of Jenny's hard work a secret that kept Ianto from going over the edge in that little room, freezing cold and dosed up on laudanum.

Jenny had laboriously copied the pages of text back out, including some obvious red herrings and mixing the lines of the equations round. Finally in the middle of the previous night she had added the wax seal and addressed three packets to different law firms, with multiple layers in each to ensure they were passed on with little comment. Finally she had copied the key out just once and made sure it went through various third parties to the only place she ever felt that she could trust.

"So you are telling me that out there," Ianto waved an expansive hand,

"Switzerland" She interjected

"There is a bank for immortal…"

"Very long lived people" she corrected quietly

"And aliens." He finished and scowled

"Ah come on Ianto, has working for Torchwood taught you nothing? Expect the unexpected."

He raised an eyebrow and waited for the rest of the story.

"It's just the type of bank where they don't ask questions, if you look on the books it's been passed from father to son for three hundred years. But when you go there they look pretty familiar."

"So you think Jack has an account there and they'll what, put a letter in his safety deposit box?"

"I know he keeps an emergency supply of cash there and they do so much more than an ordinary bank, think of them as a messaging service, poste-resturant, the real go to guys. Ianto you can never let anyone else know about it, if UNIT or any of the other agencies get wind of it they would be able to get the who's who list of non-terrestrial life forms."

"I take it they aren't exactly human mark one then?"

"Lets just say I've never seen them in daylight and they don't tend to get too close if you've had garlic bread in the last few days." Ianto's eyes turned to dinner plates.

"You know what as long as they do the job I don't care."

Jenny smiled and patted the small drawstring purse she had the bundle of letters in as they got to the top of the hill. She steered him across the street and then just stood there expectantly, she nodded slightly at the door of the next shop and he still stood there.

"Ianto, this is your treat, a proper coffee shop, this is where it all starts."

Ianto looked up and at the door, more than once he had expressed the desire to see what the inside of the places that became the big banks and shipping houses would become, now he understood why she had given him a large handful of coins this morning.

"Aren't you coming inside?" he asked suddenly feeling shy. She just swept a hand up and down to point out the dress she was wearing, equality was a very, very long way away.

"I'll go and buy the charcoal and met you back in the Cathedral whenever you are finished." He nodded, the final part of the plan needed an exact lat and long for the Rift controller and without GPS or even decent maps they could give an accurate number, so she was going to draw somewhere that would be likely to still exist and hope that Torchwood could compare with what was there now and direct the Rift in the right direction.

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

"Jack, your personal mobile is ringing." Shouted Gwen across the Hub, she was starting to go cross eyed looking at all the numbers in front of her. Between the three of them they had established one fact, the first equation of each sequence was a simple sum giving a one digit answer, apart from the obvious red herrings and a few of the other lines which gave a fraction. The end of every line also finished in a simple sum which always added up to some variation containing 1 or 0. Jack looked over at Gwen, his personal mobile never rang, literally, he had it on silent and patched through to his wrist band, Blue tooth was primitive compared to what that baby could do. He stopped and listened carefully, there was a distinct sound of an old phone ringing but synthesized, it was easy to understand why Gwen imagined it would be Jack's.

"Not guilty, Martha is that yours?"

Martha shook her head and all three of them drew their personal weapons as one. Jack waved at the women to stay on the main floor while he crept up the stairs to his office, for a large man he could be surprisingly quiet. Common sense told them all that there was no reason for the stealth, the Hub was a sealed unit, the alarms should have gone off if there had been an incursion, but as this was Torchwood there was nothing common about it. Jack poked open the door with the muzzle of his Webley and looked round his office, the sound was coming from a padded envelope on his desk.

Sensing the danger wasn't as present as they had thought a few seconds before Gwen and Martha slowly and quietly followed Jack as he poked the package. Nothing happened. Emboldened by this lack of response he gripped a corner and tore the top off, no teasing corners for impatient Jack. The force caused the contents to spill out onto the desk and the clatter of the inexpensive mobile hitting the polished top of the desk caused them all to jump.

"Well are you going to answer it or do we have to guess?" asked Gwen.

Jack checked the number, not only was it withheld it was written in German, and cautiously answered,

"Hello." His face stayed non-committed as the other end talked,

"Mein name ist Golden Dragon." Martha raised an eyebrow at Gwen, who shrugged she had long ago stopped trying to track Jacks many talents after 150 years, give or take 2000, she figured he would have seen a few things. Vast tracks of the early return to Victorian earth had been spent on the run and picking up the odd language was par for the course. Self consciously they holstered their guns and waited for a couple of bouts of humming and harring to subside and about 30 seconds later he ended the call and threw the handset in the bin.

"Finished with that are you?" asked Gwen in her sweet but sarcastic way.

"Single use, reduces the chance of interception."

"I know I'm not going to get an answer but why the secret squirrel shit this time?" asked Martha.

"Well that's where you're wrong Dr Jones, it was the answer to the question."

"42" answered Gwen flippantly

"No." Said Jack patiently "It was a message to call Ianto and if I couldn't get him at home I should check his mobile."

"Well that took a long time." Noted Martha

"Had a little banking to do as well, buy a few stocks, move a few shares." Gwen just rolled her eyes

"Phoning Ianto isn't going to help."

"Stop being so literal, it's the answer we've been looking for."

The blank looks made Jack roll his eyes and he snatched up the marker pen to start drawing on the window of his office.

He wrote Ianto's phone number down and then his mobile number and started crossing off the numbers that came from the simple sums that started each line. They matched.

"That's brilliant Jack" exclaimed Gwen with the 'but' already evident in her voice "But there are quite few numbers the same." She pointed out the two zeros starting the numbers, several threes and the triple six in his mobile number leaves us with 729 combinations alone."

Jack and Martha looked impressed at her mathematical ability, she shrugged, it was a game she played with her father as a child, she cracked times tables by the age of eight so started on tables of square roots. None of which had been any use in the adult life till now.

"It must be something to do with the final equations, perhaps we put them in ascending numerical order." Suggested Gwen warming to her audience.

"It strange all ones and zeros." Said Martha tilting her head sideways.

Jack jumped forward and kissed her in the middle of the forehead.

"That's it you brilliant girl." He said starting to cross reference the final numbers with the initial numbers.

"Jack?" It was part question part whine from both women.

"Ones and Zeros, Binary. First three digits are either one or two, the rest are what place in the phone number."

Martha smiled broadly, pulling up the equations on Jacks PC she cut and paste the figures into the order that Jack and Gwen worked out and half an hour later they were left with half a dozen erroneous lines that all had the binary for zero. There was a final triumphal silence as Martha pressed send and the computer squawked in agreement as it processed the information showing the turning egg timer large on it's screen. The completion rate crept up, 20%, 36%, 73% and then 94%, Gwen almost started clapping like a little child but restrained herself. The timer turned again and again but resolutely stayed at 94%, Martha tried the universal computer fix of hitting enter repeatedly, followed by Ctrl-Alt-Delete, but the computer cycled onwards. After a few more awkward moments the computer threw up a dialogue box. "Unable to complete operation. Information insufficient."

The women made various screaming noises and for a few seconds indulged in various histrionics while Jack started looking at the print out again. A calloused finger drew quickly down the orders to check he had it right, scanning across for the binary code it was then he noticed the blanks in the code line, the lat, long and time stamp where the gateway was to be opened.

"Ladies, time for you to go home, no point in everyone waiting round again." He said after pointing out the omission.

"What are you going to do Jack?" asked Gwen, slightly afraid of the answer.

"What I'm good at, waiting, down in the time store for the next clue.


	19. Nothing happens while it all goes on

Ianto walked slowly down the central isle of the cathedral, he could see the dark bonnet of his partner in crime towards the choir. It felt wrong making any sort of noise in this bastion of silence. It was creepy how quiet it was without the hoards of tourists snapping away with their cameras and pointing out long dead people. The people probably weren't so long dead now and the commemorative plaques were much fewer and further between. It was also strange to see the marble freshly carved and the writing still legible, if old fashioned. Though they were at the beginning of the industrial revolution the acid erosion that would come with rampant progress was yet to eat away at the protestations of undying love for the rich.

He slowly slid into the pew next to Jenny and looked at the drawing, it did seem pretty much to scale with the figure, she turned and smiled at him, pulled his chin round and closed one eye before going back to the sketch. She added features to the figure and it transformed into Ianto as he watched. He gawped open mouthed at the picture and she smiled.

"Gives it some perspective, I hope it doesn't change too much and Jack can work out the right co-ordinates." Ianto nodded

"I bet in two hundred years time Gwen is stood in that isle with a GPS and a mobile shouting at Jack."

"Do you still think there will be a curate giving her funny looks?" She said packing away her charcoal and covering the drawing. Ianto looked round and nodded at the very sullen looking young man.

"I imagine that he gives the bum numbing type of sermon that would even impress the old vicar at the Methodist church my Mother used to drag me to every Sunday." He said under his breath, he took the proffered drawing kit and offered his arm to Jenny. She missed a beat, bobbed a curtsey to the altar and then started walking with him to the door. She stopped and made quite a big show of putting a few coins in the offertory and Ianto took a sideways glance at the curate as he started to scuttle over.

He pushed the door open and took a deep breath of the still crisp air of the early afternoon, the cathedral still had that musty smell that spoke of weddings and funerals of his childhood. He placed the hat back on his head and looked around.

"How was the coffee shop?" she asked falling into step behind him her coat tails dragging slightly across the ground taking the tiny steps the full corset would allow. Ianto slowed to match her pace, after all where had they got to rush off to other than the dark room above the inn just to wait a bit longer.

"It was wonderful, thank you for suggesting it, I spent most of my time ear wigging on great conversations about ocean voyages and trading with places that even in our time seem a long way off."

Jenny smiled and pulled his arm a little closer, she had to admit to herself she was growing fond of Ianto and couldn't see a problem with spending the next 50 or so years with him but she would then have another 150 trying to decide how to tell Jack.

"Walk faster." She suddenly hissed and started to turn them ninety degrees.

"What?" exclaimed Ianto as his body was pulled abruptly in a different direction from the way his head was moving.

"Georgiana, Georgiana is it you? Is it really you?" Came a voice from across the small square of the graveyard.

"Crap, follow my lead." She said turning back to the noise.

"He was in the coffee shop, he was the one doing all the talk about buying a clipper."

"He would, he owns half of Yorkshire and a good deal of Somerset too."

"You do know him?" he said with a slightly incredulous tone.

"Yes and he knows me, or he did twenty years ago in his timeline." She blanked her face and then turned back and smiled politely at the distinguished gentleman trotting towards them. The man stopped dead.

"It's got to be you but you haven't changed a bit." The man's jaw hung open just like a cartoon for a second till he pulled himself together.

"I beg your pardon Sir, but you are mistaken, my wife is not called Georgiana." Ianto knew he had to speak up first.

"Incredible." Said the man looking Jenny over like a scientific subject, it took all her willpower not to reach out and touch the face she knew like her own. "You look just like someone I knew many years ago." His face was wistful and Jenny knew exactly why, she was lost for words but even if she could speak she knew she would be silent in case she betrayed herself.

Ianto decided to take the lead, "I don't believe I've had the pleasure Sir."

The man snapped his gaze away from her face and looked at him through narrowed eyes, the better to see his face.

"Ah the young man from India with the grand ideas about the Colonials." He pulled his lip in a unconsciously gesture that made Jenny's pulse race as it brought forth memories. "Lord Percy Crowe."

"Fifth Earl of Lanchester." Said Jenny under her breath parroting the words he always said, he wasn't sure if he heard them or it was a ghost of the past.

"Mr John Jones and my wife Jennifer." He said tipping his hat.

"My aunt is called Georgiana." She seemed to blurt out. Ianto wondered if she had been silent while she was thinking about an answer or if she has trying to hold herself together.

"Whitchurch?" asked the other man quietly

"Yes, she never married, she lives in the colonies now or so I've heard, Mother didn't like to talk about her much." She tried to make it sound disdainful, like she was talking about the family black sheep but it was more wistful.

The lord took a deep breath and looked between them, it was an awkward situation.

"India you say young man, part of the company? I've thought about investing some money need a firsthand account, you must come to dinner, tonight?" it came out in staccato bursts more like a stream of consciousness rather than a fully formed sentence.

"I err," Started Ianto, "What do you think Darling?"

"Won't take no for an answer, I'll send the carriage, where are you staying?"

Ianto pointed over the green at the Inn that now looked very shabby.

"Oh, never do, never do for a niece of such an important lady, have your man pack your bags you are coming to stay." He left no room for refusal. "She'd had me guts for garters if left you there."

"We couldn't, err people are looking for us, I mean." Ianto was losing the plot, this wasn't the plan, the plan was lie low and close to the exit point until they could escape.

"What my husband means is we have no clothing suitable as we were robbed of all our possessions on the way to London and we are awaiting news from our solicitor in the capital." It came out in a rush, Ianto got a hint of a child caught out, any lie would do to get out of there.

There was a moments uncomfortable silence before good old fashioned upper class sensibilities came into play. "My wife has rooms full of dresses she never wears and one of my male progeny should be able to spare something, I send the carriage to you as soon as I get back."

"You have children?" she said quietly.

"Five, the daughter is still at home along with the youngest boy, the others are spending my money on their grand tour or sitting round in Oxford." He tipped his hat again, "Till later."

The man near skipped away as the pair watched, he nodded to a couple across the square and walked into a waiting carriage that set off at a high pace.

"Was he always like that?" asked Ianto to break the silence

"Not till I brought him out of his shell." She said tugging his arm toward the inn, "Come on we need to make sure everything is packed correctly, he'll send people to pack for us if we don't."

Ianto blew out a heavy sigh as they started back, there were things they had brought through from the future they couldn't allow the world to see and hiding was Ianto's obvious specialty.

True to his word in less than an hour the happy couple were sat in a carriage making their way across the bustling centre of Bristol.

"No wonder they invented the car, I'm feeling sea sick." Said Ianto before glancing over to Jenny who sat head in hands next to him. He put a solicitous hand on her knee.

"This is so wrong on so many levels." She groaned, "And I need to get this drawing copied and out to Jack."

"Relax, you have said it yourself, we have 200 years." Secretly he was looking forward to seeing if living the life of a lord rally was like Pride and Prejudice.

"How's your arm?" she asked to steer the subject away from the difficult questions, if she was being honest there was a little bit of her that wanted to bring him back to earth with a bump.

"Alright, feels a bit stiff but I'll cope."

"I'll change the dressing before dinner." She said with a grump

"Something wrong?" he asked turning to look at her, she shook her head and looked out the window. "Come on something's eating you."

She stared resolutely at the passing streets until he laid his good hand on her arm and hooked an eyebrow upwards as she turned to look at him.

"It's like Ghostbusters isn't it?" she said sharply, "We're crossing the streams, it might not be meeting yourself and stepping on your own grandfather but it's the closest we're going to get. Sooner or later Percy will work it out and poof. We blow his mind or he blows out my brains."

The clip clop of the hooves was rhythmic and starting to echo more as the streets began to widen and Ianto took his time forming his reply, it was as skill he had learnt with Jack.

"Look on the bright side, three days and we're gone."

"Suppose." She said as they drew up and she changed her face again into a smiling happy face, but the smile didn't reach her eyes.

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Gwen walked through the cog and waited for the cage door to open fully as she balanced coffee, doughnuts and a pair of steaming bacon butties. She stepped out into the eerily quiet Hub and looked up, the pet dino was sat perched on the edge of her cave a sure sign that she hadn't been fed. She looked up at Jacks office wondering why he hadn't bounced out when she noticed the only light on was the desk lamp. She called out for him as she put the food down, the enticing smell was killing her and she wanted to dig in but there was a reason she had bought two of everything. She started flicking through the CCTV feed and found him where she expected him, the time locked storage bay. What she wasn't expecting was the rocking, sobbing form of the man she so often thought of a solid rock, smooth warm granite perhaps but still dependable and unflappable. Immediately her heart went out to him and she started to tear up. She picked up the coffee and the butties and started down the corridor shouting her presence so he would have time to pull himself together.

When she finally turned the corner she was poleaxed to see Jack still sat on the floor. Even though she had made noise fit to wake the dead she still approached Jack cautiously, placing her bounty on the floor near the door, without seeing his hands you were never sure they didn't have a gun in them. His head was resting on his arms, bunched on his knees and she could see his shuddering breath wracking his body.

"Jack, love, have you been here all night?" she asked quietly touching his arm, the damp in the fibres of his shirt answered her question, he had to be freezing. She sat down next to him, hips touching and she threw her arm over his shoulder and started rubbing his arms to try and get the blood flowing. She knew better than to say anything because Jack would always fill a silence something which they shared in common. Eventually he pulled his head upwards and the state of his face shocked her, his eyes were red and so puffy she had trouble recongising him, he wiped his streaming nose inelegantly on his sleeve and looked around as if he didn't know where he was for a second.

"What time is it?" He said groggily

"Tomorrow morning." Said Gwen wishing the coffee wasn't so far out of reach.

Jack physically shook himself took a breath and then jumped up.

"Is that bacon I smell?" He asked in his normal cocky style, if Gwen hadn't seen him just seconds before she wouldn't have known anything was wrong. He spun round and zoned in on the bacon and coffee and took the step over to retrieve it, Gwen noticed him dragging his hand across his eyes and pinch his nose.

"Do you want to talk about it?" She asked futilely

"Nope" he said unwrapping the sandwich and stuffing half the roll in at once, his party trick carefully crafted to silence the questioning masses.

Gwen took the other bun and started to nibble on it, she leant against the wall, furniture was sparse in this room it wasn't a good idea to have too much in the room in case it disappeared from underneath you when time shifted. It was hard to stay silent, she felt her fingers drumming on the wall behind her but she fought the urge successfully.

"For crying out loud say something." Said Jack firing the empty coffee cup at the bin in the corridor. He missed spectacularly, which just showed his state of mind as he never missed, and sprayed the coffee dregs across the wall.

"What do you want me to say Jack?" She said quietly and pushed off the wall towards him, "I need to know what's happened before I can say anything of use."

She held out her arms and he readily fell into them and felt the warmth of her embrace which pushed him back over the edge again.

"I miss him, it was my fault, I should have done something, I could be doing more, I need him back, it's too soon I wasn't ready." The sentence came flowing out, the weight of the words held back behind a dam that had just failed. Gwen pulled her fingers through the short hair at the back of his neck to sooth him as you would a frightened animal, she knew Inato was special close but she had never really grasped the intensity that they had now reached. She moved her hands to his arms and pushed him far enough back that she could see his red rimmed eyes.

"Jack it's too early to give up yet, it's been a weekend and we are doing everything we can, you have got to stop blaming yourself, no one could have known that was about to happen." She tried to be caring but blunt. "What Ianto needs is you to be strong and on the ball, what's it you say, got to be ready."

Jack snorted at the turn around Gwen had done on him as she pulled him in again, she was of course right but the dark of the night just sitting waiting had given his brain time to run riot and end up in all the dark and evil alleyways of his mind.

Before his trip with the Doctor Jack would have turned the embrace into something more, but now he felt happily tamed. Ianto was all that he needed the piece of him that had been missing since, he thought a second, since Lucia thirty years before. Her rejection had hit him hard and sent him on a downward spiral of self loathing and abuse which had managed to earn him a few years in the wilderness and a few more being "re-educated" in manner that even now turned his stomach. He had become enamored with the idea of domestic bliss even in the crazy world that was Torchwood. He hadn't got round to explaining this to Ianto, that was going to be the climax of the night out - get rid of the rest of the team, politely, then profess his undying (literally) love, hope Ianto felt the same and end with the earth shattering sex. Well he was still Jack after all. Now the dream had shattered and he was alone again, and even worse it was his entire fault, he had driven Lucia away with fear for their child and this time he had gone and lost Ianto, literally.

Slowly Gwen pulled back, she was beginning to like it too much.

"So nothing else has appeared overnight?"

"No." he said mournfully and turned to look over the shelves for the hundredth time, there was no telltale marker and no open boxes and he was pretty sure he would have felt any timeshift activity. She followed him as he walked to the edge of the shelving units and looked with him.

"Perhaps they're busy doing something?" suggested Gwen in all innocence.

"Yer they might just be busy fighting the Napoleonic war, being hung for stealing a loaf of bread or just generally dying of one of hundreds of diseases that they can't treat yet." He replied caustically, Gwen took it with good grace because she knew it was reaction to his current situation.

"Look if all else fails there are two solutions to this problem," she started pragmatically, "firstly she said in her letter to me that we could just wait round till she gets back here and then none of this will happen."

"Great a time paradox, just what we need."

"Or you could go back from the future when time travel becomes common place and fix it all."

"Just like that?" he asked with the eyebrow.

"Oh I don't know." She said in an exasperated tone "Two years ago I didn't even know what a Rift was and now I converse with aliens on a daily basis and hunt Weevils for light relief so excuse me if my suggestions are slightly wacky." She folded her arms and pouted in that ever so Gwen way. Jack looked at her, looked at the floor and looked back up smiling.

"Whatever would I do without you?" he said placing a smacker on forehead before bounding out of the room.

Gwen rolled her eyes and shrugged her shoulder to the room in general, Jack Harkness – force of nature was back.


	20. Never what you want

"Martha, will you tell him to stop. Please." Said Gwen as the doctor passed through the door. Martha looked over at the sight of Jack scrolling endlessly through old microfiche files on a viewer he had dragged up from the vaults somewhere.

"I didn't even know they still existed." Said Martha throwing her red beret across the desk, called away to explain why UNIT would be staying in Cardiff for the foreseeable future she was back in black.

"He's been at it since breakfast and he didn't stop for lunch." Gwen was quite happy to leave the clock behind and work around her stomach, "He hasn't even stopped for coffee." She said throwing her hands up as if this explained everything. Martha walked over to Jack and put a hand on his forehead from behind,

"Nope, doesn't feel as if you're running a fever, but missing coffee you must be ill." She moved her hands to his shoulders and started to rub the tense shoulders. Gwen felt a pang of jealousy as Jack sat back and stopped the endless rolling words across the screen. Other people could get Jack to do what they needed she just seemed to get ignored until he got a better offer, she quickly pushed that thought away, Ianto was welcome to him she had her Rhys.

Slowly he turned away from the screen, if someone could have square eyes it would have been Jack at that moment. He blinked at the darkness that engulfed him as he looked away from the bright screen and then looked at Martha and Gwen.

"Ladies, did someone mention coffee?' he asked with false bonhomie.

Gwen rolled her eyes, "Starbucks or Costa?"

"Caramel macchiato." Hummed Martha making the choice for them

Gwen shrugged and went to get her coat, she knew when she was surplice to requirements and she could do with the air. She was quite surprised when Jack pulled his coat from the back of the chair and cracked his neck.

"Colonel Grant says he can spare my detachment for another week, if we need it." She added quietly.

"I wouldn't want to keep you from the chocolate and cuckoo clocks for so long Dr Jones." Said Jack in the old fashioned smug way that he had perfected over hundreds of years, it didn't fool either woman.

"What are you doing anyway?" Asked Martha.

"Oh, he says he is searching for clues, for any sort of signature that they've left in the past to help locate them."

"The rift manipulator calculations Jenny sent back as perfect, except they're missing two vital pieces of information, when they are and where they need the Rift to be opened, she also left the biometrics out but they Hub scans had those in and I assume in a few days even Ianto can't eat that many pies."

"Why do you need to know their weight?" asked Gwen suddenly getting self conscious about the fact that Jack could always find out how much she tipped the scales at, she would start the diet tomorrow.

"Mass actually, regulates the strength of the Rift carrier wave, too much power they could go shooting off into the ether, too little and you could get stuck in limbo."

"Sounds as if it needs to be a little more accurate than the radius you'll get from looking at the," She paused and turned her head sideways to look at the banner "Bristol Gazette of 1810."

Jack kicked at the floor with the toe of his boot and took a deep breath,

"I just needed to be doing something." He mumbled

"Right then a bracing walk across the Plass to the nearest coffee house is just what the doctor ordered." Said Martha holding out his coat.

"No thanks, I'll stay here, just in case."

"Jack," huffed Gwen, "you need to get out, watched pot never boils and all that." She smiled in the syrupy way that always got her own way with Jack.

Jack sagged slightly in defeat, and nodded as Martha proffered his coat again.

"It's not often that we aren't running round after Weevil sightings and Rift flotsam and jetsam, we should be grateful to Martha and her UNIT team." Said Gwen in her chipper way.

"Ianto searched for me, I checked the CCTV when I came back, he didn't go out for coffee. It seemed like he didn't sleep. I saw the argument you guys had when Saxon sent you to the foot hills of Everest, how he wanted to stay here, no one told me about that."

"Ianto didn't want to give you the guilt trip, he swore us all to secrecy." Gwen didn't sound so chipper now

"Oh Great." Said Jack "I thought we were done we secrets?"

"In that case are you going to tell us what you're really doing?" asked Martha.

Jack just pouted and started for the door.

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Ianto handed Jenny out of the coach in the seconds from sitting on the bench to popping her head into the sunlight her expression had become one of polite surprise. Ianto was like a dog with two tails and full of nervous energy. The man from the cathedral stepped spryly down the stone steps to the large house and a woman, dressed in a similar but more conservative manner to Jenny seemed to glide down after him.

"Glad you came, glad you came." He said pumping Ianto's hand. The woman stopped a step behind him and appraised them both before stepping forward to be introduced.

"I didn't believe my husband when he said you were the spitting image, you could be the same person." Instinctively she stepped forward to hug Jenny, "Your aunt gave me so much I feel humbled to be able to give something back."

Jenny stood still in shock, she had tried to mentally prepare herself on the journey here but nothing could have prepared her for the feelings she had now. She had watched many children grow old round her but she had always kept in touch and been part of their journey, it was such a wrench to have missed years of their lives and know what would happen to them in the coming years.

"Where are our manners, standing round on a cold step? Come inside, you must take tea with me in the Orangery while Percy shows John lots of dead things on the wall." She arched an eyebrow and Ianto realised exactly who had taught her the move.

Ianto bounced through the interlocking door of their rooms in a marvelously fitting evening suit that had belonged to the youngest son of the family.

"This is wonderful, I remember once I told Jack I envied him for knowing what the past was really like and told me it wasn't so hot. However I've got to say he's wrong, this is great I'm really starting to understand all the history lessons, Percy was telling me all about the abolition of slavery, he knows Wilberforce you know."

"William was a lovely man, works himself into an early grave in a few years." She said snippily tugging at her hair with a bristle brush.

"Now you tell me you know William Wilberforce, you're as bad as Jack, I'd love to meet him."

"Well you can't, I can't take you there and we'll be gone before anyone else can introduce you."

Ianto sat on the bed heavily and sighed.

"What's changed, you were so happy a few hours ago."

"Reality bit." She barked

Ianto stood quietly and walked behind her and put his hands on her bare shoulders,

"You look beautiful with that dress on, you should show your figure more often." She smiled in the mirror.

"In Cardiff, in winter?" she asked showing some of her old self.

"I take your point." He said moving his fingers lightly over her tense muscles. "Now are you going to tell me what's eating you?"

She sighed, Ianto knew exactly what was going through her head, the same thing happened to him every time Jack asked him to open up and he knew if he just gave her the space she'd fill it.

"I knew Percy as a young man. He was a shy thing, second son, overlooked by a boor of a father and abused by his older brother who drank like a fish and gambled like money was going out of fashion. We grew close, very close and he became the man he is today. His brother ended up getting killed in spectacular fashion, in a duel and the loss drove his father to madness and suicide. So you see I had to leave him, someone would notice if the wife of a peer never aged, but I found him a companion in Grace. I kept watch over them and they are the happiest couple you should ever want to meet."

"Sounds like the best thing that could of happened." Said Ianto trying to offer soothing words.

"I watched them from afar, their own first born dies in a riding accident, their third son, the man whose suit you are wearing, dies leading a charge at Waterloo, their daughter dies in child birth and Grace withers away with grief and cancer. Adam, their second son is gay in a time when a peers job is to make heirs and he lives a miserable life with a shrew of a wife, after a few more generations frittering away everything this man has made and more the line dies out just before the turn of the century."

Ianto sat on the corner of the stool she occupied and sort of gasped.

"I'd never thought of that." He said pulling at his bottom lip, the thought shot into his mind that Jack could be going through this everyday and he'd never said a thing.

She stood and brushed her hair straight down her back then shook it straight.

"So if you have any ideas for small talk during dinner that don't include tips on not traveling to Belgium in the next five years or how to deliver a breach birth when the doctor you call is drunk and the midwife is a hag please do feel free to share." She snapped then instantly held up her hand in supplication. "Sorry, really uncalled for."

Suddenly a gong sounded down in the main hall as she turned to look at him.

"You look a little flushed are you ok?"

Ianto nodded, he had a bit of a headache but he'd put that down to the near permanent state of tipsy in this time, Percy had piled him with three sherries and he'd had ale with the lunch they managed to whip down just before the coach had arrived.

"It's all the bloody layers this lot wear, do you know the valet offered me a corset." He nearly whispered the last bit.

"Ah we'll make a Dandy of you yet, beauty spot and a bit of rouge and you'll make Beau Brummel jealous." She offered her arm as they walked out of the door and down the hallway that was wider than his flat before making it to the staircase grander than the Titanic. He faltered slightly as he went to the head of the stairs, putting his injured arm out to steady himself.

"I was going to take a look at that, how's it feeling now?" she asked

"Bit stiff but only be expected, tell you what I'll let you undress me later." He said with a leer that he could have only got from Jack. She hit him lightly with her fan and smiled at him as they reached the bottom of the stairs.

"You look so much better in that than I ever did, doesn't she dear?" asked Grace.

"And how can I ever answer that you exasperating woman?" gushed Jenny's former lover "Damned if I do and Damned if I don't." he huffed

Jenny smiled as their hosts took them to the dining room, introducing their youngest son and their daughter, Ianto found it hard to look them in the eye but tried to put the mental images to the back of his mind. As they passed out of the hall way Jenny passed a small package to one of the footmen.

"Could you make sure this is sent first thing tomorrow." She asked. The footman just nodded and Jenny stopped worrying, all they could do was wait.


	21. Never what it seems

Hi folks, sorry this took a while I've been away and I wrote this one on the beach, long hand. So it's taken me a while to type it up and decipher my own appalling spelling.

I should say for all my American reader(s) the holiday was in Cuba and this was mojito fueled – so of course you'll all want to skip this chapter in the spirit of capitalism – oh no wait I would have to be making some money out of this in the first place! Honestly colonial cousins you don't know what you're missing.

On another point I now realize this has been on the go for well over a year, I think I started in the weeks before COE, which is why the front page says "lets pretend it hadn't happened" – how right are those words! Seriously thanks for staying with it, hey perhaps I'll get it finished before series 4, only a year to go!

Happy reading.

D

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The dinner was progressing very well, good wine, good company and well, Ianto thought, probably the best food these times would offer, if a bit gristly for his taste. Lean meat was still a few chosen blood lines in the future. The blazing light of what seemed like hundreds of candles heated the room fairly quickly and Jenny, despite earlier reservations, seemed to be enjoying herself.

All too soon the fifth, no was it the sixth, course was cleared away and small plates brought to hold the fruit from a large centre stand. Solid silver figures held up an overflowing conche of grapes and oranges while atop the lot was a slightly mouldy pineapple, obviously prized and feted.

"Have you ever tasted pineapple Mr Jones?" asked the slip of a girl that was the daughter Jenny had already condemned.

"Oh we have it all the time back home." He felt the sharp pain of a foot connecting with his ankle, a reminder to his wine soaked brain that the company that they were in were not to be told about home.

"Home is England now dear." She said in quiet reminder

"Grew it in the hot house, took two bloody years and half a coalmine." Snorted Percy

"Does it taste nice?"asked the girl in a world of her own.

"You mean you grow it for two years and you never get to eat it?" Asked Ianto, bold with intoxication.

The table went inexplicably silent then Percy started laughing.

"The thought never crossed my mind until now." He sucked his bottom lip in and Ianto looked across at Jenny who looked on with a sort of wistful longing. Percy called for the biggest knife in the kitchen and a footman, who was used to the whims of the aristocracy, ran off as the offending fruit was grabbed and examined.

"And how does one best a pineapple? I've only ever had one already deboned." He said with a wry smile.

Jenny had a flash of a salon, the Prince of Wales and an awful lot of rum imported direct from her own plantation, it was a five star resort now, in the future, past, god this was too complicated. All of a sudden she realized they were all looking at her, the dutiful colonial wife. She motioned for Percy to pass the beast and remembered too late that the quick flick of her fingers was something she had always done and it had been noted. To break the spell she noisily pushed the chair back, causing another footman to surge forward and both men in the household to begin to rise, stopped by another flick of the wrist, grasped the leaves and pulled them from the ripe fruit. The large cleaver arrived and was immediately placed in her hand and she raised it like a sacrificial dirk. Pity Burns wasn't around yet, a quick round of "Ode to a Haggis" would go down well now, but instead she placed the tip of the knife in the middle and added a little pressure.

The ripe fruit instantly split, only the skin had started to spoil and she wiped the sweet juice off the blade, to add to the drama Adelaide, the adolescent daughter, started to clap. The phrase "sheltered life" sprang to mind. Swiftly she cut the skin away and remembering how she'd first tasted pineapple she cut away the core and placed it on a different plate. She had sat in a servants hall of a house not so different from this one eating the leavings of a particularly difficult Master. She placed the knife on the plate and gave a pointed look to the footman as he distributed the plates of fruit.

Pushing at it like it would bite the family watched as Ianto threw a bit in his mouth and then followed suit. The rapturous noises made by Adelaide were slightly over the top but when you couldn't open a tin and taste it every day, she could suppose it made sense. Ianto however started giggling like a girl. Jenny shot him a look and another swift kick, his eyes were slightly glassy and his face slightly red. She would have words about temperance later. Grace, sensing the evening was getting away placed her napkin on the table and caught the eye of her daughter and Jenny.

"Time to leave the men to their Port I believe ladies." She looked at her son who started to push his chair backwards. "Don't worry my dear my brandy is much better than his." She said conspiratorially to Jenny. As Grace went to push her chair back her son stood to assist as did Percy for Jenny. Ianto noticing what was happening went to do the same, Adelaide waved him away but Ianto continued to try and stand. Jenny went to shoot him another look, really she hadn't put him down for a merry drunk, to be honest she hadn't put him down for a drunk at all.

As she caught his eye with a scowl she saw something else, it wasn't intoxication, but pure, unadulterated fear. The synapses in her brain sped up from their dozy happy state that had seen her playing with a pineapple moments before and she zoned in all the things that suddenly didn't fit the jigsaw. Red face, dropping eyes and slight uncoordination.

"Yan" she stated and then remembering her own rules about calling him John in public she tried again, "John are you feeling well?"

Ianto made a scrappy head nod and shake at the same time and suddenly found the energy to stand like the rest of the room. Gaining the vertical he looked directly at her, blinked heavily twice and in a dazed voice uttered one word, "Jack" before collapsing like a sack of potatoes. The young girl next to him screamed slightly, the noise of his head connecting with the chair and floor was quite sickening and the other occupants of the room all moved with varying degrees of swiftness, none more so than Jenny.

Servants moved furniture and the near hysterical daughter while Grace placed a hand on his forehead and ordered cold water. Percy ripped open his stiff collar that constricted his breathing. Jenny had been furthest away but as soon as soon as she dropped to her knees by his head it was clear to her keen medical eye what the problem was. A sickly grey and bathed in sweat she quickly checked his head and found only a small knock, she too felt his forehead and hissed, the burn on his arm must have finally become infected. She kicked herself for not making time to check it earlier. Jenny could hear orders for fires and rooms in the background as one of the footmen offered his jacket as a pillow, she shuffled up to Ianto's side pushing the young son out of the way to feel at his arm. Ianto flinched even in his unconscious state and Jenny eased his arm out of the tight jacket with difficulty.

They'd made light of the injury to avoid the awkward questions but even without taking off the shirt they could see the discolouring coming through the bandage.

"Tilford, wake the stable boy and get him to fetch Doctor Cummings here now." Ordered Grace

Jenny thought of stopping her but she was supposed to be a simpering Georgian wife, not a highly trained physician.

"Can we get him upstairs?" She asked as Grace placed a damp cloth on his forehead. It seemed to have some effect as his eyes opened and his good hand flailed round for a friendly hand, he whispered Jacks name again.

"Jack's his brother." She said loudly trying to get him to shut up before he said anything incriminating, "They're very close."

She felt a hand on her shoulder, something very familiar and comforting about the long manicured fingers so close to her ear.

"Don't worry my dear, we'll get him upstairs, Dr Cummings is on his way, we'll look after him."

Something inside her finally fell into to place,

"No I'll look after him, he's my responsibility" She wanted to say her fault but she couldn't explain that. She felt soft feminine arms pulling her back as an army of servants seemed to arrive and bodily hoisted Ianto from the room.

"Give them a few minutes and we'll go up there." Said Grace to appease the hellcat that seemed to have been unleashed, "Time to try that brandy I think."

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"Something will have happened I can feel it." He said Jack sniffing the air like a ferret with the scent of a rat. They were stood on the slightly secluded lower deck of the new bay that led to the mock tourist office. Today it had a sign in the window that read 'Closed due to staff illness' even though Jack had really wanted to put 'because the only person who knows what they are doing in here has disappeared'. So now he was faking polite small talk while leaning on the railings with two people who deserved better. Gwen, facing into the Bay, kicked lightly at one of the railings trying to think of anything that would stop him vanishing back into the Hub and the serious depression of an hour before. Little did she know all Jack could see while standing there was a skinny, frightened boy trying to give him coffee, desperate for a job so he could save his girlfriend. It had taken a while for Jack to evaluate Ianto's motives that day and when it had finally struck him that all Ianto had wanted to do was save Lisa, to the point where he forgot the rest of the world, his own heart had been overwhelmed – and that was so not Jack. What before had been a warm and pliant body, something to scratch an itch, became something to cherish and even worship. Jack had been finally forced to admit to himself he could actually be in love. But that was over now he told himself, a blip in time, he had to move on, be strong Captain Jack fighting Weevils and Hoix and all sorts of phantasmagoria, saving Planet Earth for the future. He wasn't just a blip in time though and Jack knew it.

"Jack" Martha sounded exasperated, "You haven't listened to a word I've said." She stood like a raven, dressed in black and hands on her hips making her arms into wings. He suddenly had a flashback of the evil creatures that had haunted the Boeshane and his breath caught. He had to snap himself out of it.

"Martha was suggesting that we call the Doctor." Said Gwen gently, she reached forward to hold his forearm, let him know someone was there. Jack closed his eyes, counted to three and opened them as himself.

"Already tried and he's not answering, my contacts keep saying something to do with the Ood." Jack's contacts, some sort of alien mafia, had an answer for most things answers Gwen had learnt not to question.

"They give any insight into what caused the bubble?" asked Martha

Jack glanced round, Torchwood might be the least secret, secret organization but it didn't mean they should broadcast classified information stood on a windy boardwalk. He motioned for them to go underground again.

"Space tourists that's all, using the Rift to power their engines, the bubble was just backwash." He said with a sigh, "They kept sniffing through the centuries till they found the right mix of chemicals to kick start their systems, seems someone needs the byproducts of wine going off, stale chemicals from 20 years of cigarette smoke and a small amount of really cheap aftershave." He said with his own blend of sark.

Gwen was already in action on the computer to see what might have changed and Jack saw his inbox, email was possibly the worst tech he had ever unleashed on the world.

"Martha, sweetheart" he said in a tone she hadn't heard since the TARDIS, "Could you do me a favour and change out of the black, it doesn't suit you."

"Remind you of Red Caps?" she asked salaciously and then seeing a lack of response she went over and wrapped her arm around his shoulder. Even though the reason was misinterpreted the kindness nearly broke him and he clung to her momentarily. He couldn't close his eyes though because every time he did he was back there on that beach searching.

"Jack I've got an automatic message from a programme set up by Tosh." Jack patted Martha's backside to send her on her way, anyone else would have been given a slap in return but that was the thing about Jack, you forgave him most things.

"What's it say?" asked Jack as Gwen delved into the email. At one time the only person who got any alerts was Jack but when he went away the team had re-routed it to all of them and Jack had never thought to change it back.

"It's something in one of the deep storage halls, from One." She added in a whisper.

"You don't think it's Hartman's ghost do you?"Said Jack trying to make it sound spooky. Gwen had never known the woman who nearly ended the world but she'd heard enough stories to know she was the cultural bogeyman. She probably didn't know that her body was down in deep storage brought there by Jack, so he could keep tabs on her if nothing else.

"I'll go and see shall I?" said Gwen quite surprised that Jack hadn't leapt up. Fact was he was scared, he didn't want to go into the archives, Ianto's domain, without him there. No one to shout 'don't touch that' stressing the first word so much that it sounded like the foreign language he spoke whenever he could. Jack pretended he didn't understand Welsh but really he had been round enough to understand most things, everything when the TARDIS was around.

Gwen and Martha came back together dragging a small truck with one of the larger artifact boxes on it. The type that held the last earthly chattels of a Torchwood agent.

"Some sort of energy inside it." Said Gwen as they all stared. Jack circled the box wearily, they all knew now to be circumspect with things from One. The computer made a noise indicating that it at least thought it was safe, as safe as anything at Torchwood anyway.

"Right, let's have a look then." Said Jack pulling the tag from the lid, he humphed , "It's Jenny's from when she was known as Daisy Phillips, or by the time they boxed her Species 22394." He flipped over the record sheet, "Ianto must have added something to it when he was in London, I'd recognize his writing anywhere."

Ianto's past was rarely spoken of, Jack wanted no mention of the old regime and Ianto didn't want to remember all the things to do with Lisa. Jack undid the buckled strap and slipped the lid off and took the accession card.

"Case reopened 2006, letter, item 3212 re-filed. Hand writing match letters containing drawing of unknown cathedral and lone figure."

All the items inside were methodically stowed, you could tell it had been re-organised, the boxes from the sixties prisoners were usually unkempt and unloved, as if no one wanted to acknowledge the dirty secret they held.

"Here it is" said Martha pulling out a letter, she read the filling card attached while Gwen smoothed out what was left of the letter, gnawed in one folded corner by a long dead rodent to make it look like a doily.

"She sent it here to a solicitor here in Cardiff but it looks like Victorian Torchwood found it with a 'measmariser' whatever one of those was."

"They didn't quite have Ianto's style for naming things. Alice used to take it everywhere, found a lot of things with it that were somewhere they shouldn't be."

"Including you." Said Gwen.

"I'd like to think that force of personality would have managed that." Said Jack smiling and inwardly shuddering at the memories of two thousand years under Cardiff and another hundred in cold storage.

As Gwen tried to demystify what was left of the drawing and letter, which was the first addressed to her, Jack leafed through a few of the other objects stolen from a blameless life all because her difference 'threatened' an empire. A bright red lipstick, greasy with age, a pair of spectacles that would grace Dame Edna quite well, plain glass - to hide behind and a brown hideously patterned sixties nylon top and matching slacks. Probably what she had worn as they dragged her into the interrogation, by the time he got to her she would have been in a prison style jump suit if anything at all, aliens had no rights.

"I see why Ianto put them together, the address is missing but the writing seems to match." Said Martha trying to find out if this was the missing information they needed. "I wonder if Ianto knew?" she said in wonder.

"I don't think so guys, look at this" said Gwen grimly

On the desk she had smoothed out the drawing and the face looking back out was Ianto. Jack's breath caught and he looked at the drawing, he counted slowly down from ten in his head so he didn't give away any emotion.

"And what information can we divine from this people?" he asked personally seeing no more than a reminder of something he no longer had.

"Well there's a poem or something on the bottom look, it says we'll be waiting at the turn of the first blue moon." Said Gwen tapping her tongue against the back of her teeth, something she did when she was piecing a case together.

"Anyone recognize the background?" asked Martha

"Looks churchy." Said Jack helpfully. He didn't do organized religion and shunned churches wherever possible, pity spooky ecclesiastical settings seemed to attract the sort of creatures that he was there to sort out.

"Blue Moon – isn't that like the second new moon in a month? I can check if there's one near the date of her letters." Said Gwen as the metaphorical light went on.

"Can you see any coordinates in the letter?" demanded Jack, he was itching to get his hands on the rift manipulator, perhaps when he got the full sized version working he could figure out what the Doctor had done to his personal vortex piece and he could be free again.

"Nope." Said Martha turning the fragile paper over, "Stands to reason though, not too many GPS satellites in 1810 are there?"

Jack could have smacked his head off the desk, how stupid was he? Blinded by technological advances he just wasn't thinking straight, but he managed to keep his cool, clearing his throat to mask the lump that had formed there when he realized the jigsaw was still missing a piece.

"Suggestions?" He tried to bark, Gwen put a hand on his arm, she couldn't imagine what it would be like to lose Rhys like this.

"There was a blue moon about a week after the first letters, so we have the time and I've been thinking, in a week they couldn't have moved far without a car so this," she said tapping the drawing, " must be in Bristol and this looks like a church."

"Do they have a cathedral in Bristol? Old, doesn't change much, would be open all the time but sheltered from prying eyes on the street, especially on a night." Asked Martha counting the plus points off on her fingers.

"Looks like it's time for a road trip." Said Gwen happily

Jack raised an eyebrow, he didn't like his team splitting up, especially when he was down to one person.

"I'll go to Bristol, check out if it is the cathedral and get the GPS reading." Jack rolled his eyes to show that he got why she had to go to Bristol. "Well she wouldn't have been able to give the GPS two hundred years ago, no satellites see." She said still not getting it. Jack chucked the SUV keys at her to close the argument.


	22. Fever

This one goes out to chironsgirl. Sorry I'm so slow!

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"No" She stood with her hands on her hips. "I won't let you bleed him, can't you see how weak he is? Drawing blood will only make him worse." Jenny was shouting at a man not used to being questioned by a feeble woman, in fact anyone questioning his medical knowledge was a rarity.

Dr Cummings decided very quickly to do what he always did in these situations and ignore the hysterical female, it was of course for the best, wouldn't do to over excite the weaker female brain. He addressed Percy,

"I'll give you some laudanum, it should help keep her calm while I get my instruments, it's the only way to get the fever down." He tried to sound strong, really he did, but she stood there like a Valkyrie turning his bowels to water. He ferreted about in his brown leather bag for the small corked bottle and turned round holding it close to his chest with both hands to lessen the giveaway shaking. Jenny snatched the bottle,

"I'll take that." She snatched the bottle and Doctor Cummings thought he had made a breakthrough. "It should help ease some of the fever and reduce the pain so he can rest. Now go away before I'm forced to take matters into my own hands."

"But sir I must protest." He started going back to Percy, obviously the woman was mad and it made him nervous. Percy held up his hand,

"What she says makes sense to me, seen many a man die of blood loss on the battlefield, I think the lady knows her husband and I am not going to contradict her. Mr McGovern will see you out." The butler moved forward to pick the doctors bag, he didn't like modern medicine, quackery with a piece of paper if you asked him.

Jenny went back over to Ianto and took the damp cloth out of the water and winced, it was already filthy but she had nothing else, she placed it lightly on his forehead and he seemed to lift his head to meet it. He started mumbling incoherent partly formed words, sucked away by his body's need for oxygen and spread round the room as he turned his head this way and that to try and get out of his own burning skin. She sat on the bed and smoothed the cloth over his face and then looked up at the others in the room, so many it was hard to move, she looked down at herself and then back at her friend of so many years past.

"I wonder could I borrow something more practical, a working dress, a pinny perhaps and clean linen, old though because I can't guarantee that the stains will come out. And I apologize for the inconvenience, I'm keeping you all awake, if I could just get some freshly boiled water I'll be fine, we'll be fine." Her calm, quiet voice was just about managing to hide the panic that threatened to overwhelm her. Not only was she about to lose Ianto she only had a few days to get him in the cathedral or they missed their rift window and she wasn't sure the manipulator could take the strain, besides the calculator had died without the life of the Hub to recharge it and while she was good remembering the full cosign coefficient she needed to calculate the precise data which was beyond even her. She saw Grace nod at the housekeeper who stepped forward.

"I knew your Aunt, she was a wonderful woman and if you are anything like her suggesting you leave the messy work to us while you get some sleep would be useless." Jenny looked at her old ladies maid, older and wiser looking she still had the same name, even though everyone called her Mrs out of deference. Would the past just leave her alone for five minutes, please.

"We'll work shifts, between the three of us there can always be at least one asleep and if one of the maids or footmen fetches and carries John should never be alone." Grace nodded at the housekeeper who nodded at the butler, the deal was done and Jenny was happy that the simple decisions had been taken out of her hands.

The room emptied quite suddenly and Jenny found herself alone with Ianto and she finally let go, the tears mingled with the tepid water she was sponging his face with. She laid the napkin on his forehead and rubbed her own face.

"What am I going to do with you?" she chided. Closing her eyes she counted to three to centre herself and then opened them with a hearty sniff. "Pull yourself together." She said to herself and let her brain snap back into place. She appraised the situation, the servants had obviously brought him upstairs and laid him on the bed, took his shoes off and not much more. The so called doctor hadn't even looked at his arm, just sniffed at it with a wrinkled nose and pronounced that he needed bleeding. She cooled the cloth in the water again and bent close to Ianto's ear to explain what she was about to do and apologised for the pain she would cause him, remembering the laudanum she shook the bottle with her finger over the top and wiped some of the liquid on his gums. Ianto started mumbling Jack's name and Jenny decided she did not want to know why he would dredge up that memory from that action. She continued to wipe his face and nipped gently at his good hand till the reaction seemed to lessen and she judged that the pain killer had deadened his senses a little more. Carefully she started to remove his jacket and then his shirt, the bandages were oozing yellow fluid and he whimpered, carefully she lifted the arm and pulled down the sheets before unbuttoning the over fanciful arrangement, long live the zip.

She gently pulled the heavy cotton of the trousers down his hips and stopped a second when she realized he wasn't wearing underwear, of course they were in the 19th century, Y-fronts were a few tens of decades away. However she was and would always be a professional and she was continuing to remove the trousers when the door opened and Lady Grace breezed through in a heavy skirt and white blouse.

"Oh my." She said quickly turning her back, Jenny pulled the sheet up to his waist and coughed slightly. "Not that it's anything we haven't seen before my dear."

"I think he's starting to cool down a bit." She said gratefully.

"Well leave him to me for a moment or two, Mrs Pinchley has laid out some more practical clothes for you next door and the maid will be brining the linen up presently. I must say you see to know what you are doing."

"I worked with the nursing sisters in the convent in India." She said quickly and Grace seemed to accept this.

"There are some clothes next door and the water is coming." Said Grace taking the damp cloth to his forehead and rolling it gently round his temples, her tone effectively dismissing Jenny. She felt like bobbing a curtsey and walking out the room backwards but she knew it was the way Grace had been brought up, to believe she was the mistress of all she surveyed.

Dressed in plain workaday clothes, her hair scraped back, Jenny quietly closed the door. There was a maid banking up the fire and a footman was just taking away the used bowl of water. The covers had been pulled fully back over him and he was pale, yet bathed in sweat, he was no longer mumbling just breathing shallowly. Grace was placing an invalid sipper to his mouth and letting a little liquid trickle in, that was going to be the biggest problem, keeping him hydrated. She checked herself, she had no idea what was lurking under the bandage so she moved the heavy covers over and started to unwrap Ianto's arm. The smell made her gag and the pain as the skin pulled away with the last bandage jolted Ianto into a screaming fit, eyes wide and roaming round the room. Grace did her best to calm him down as Jenny threw the last of the bandages in a bucket, deciding just to carry on she quickly inspected the oozing mess. Most of the skin surface of his lower arm had been burnt, upto the knuckles and across his hand, the alien anti-biotic had staved off the first effects but the wound was too big and the conditions to unsanitary to expect anything but a stay of execution really. Quickly and without any finesse she poured a bottle of iodine over the raw wound and Ianto went rigid, as if she had shocked him and then went limp and silent. Jenny rushed to take a pulse, god she'd killed him, how could she be so stupid as to forget the fact that he wasn't under a proper anesthesia and the shock, the pain had done for him. Then she felt it, a fluttering, and she let out a sigh of relief and looked into Grace's eyes.

"He's just unconscious." She said breathily and silently genuflected, a nervous tick that had comforted her since her days in the convent.

Gwen was just about stood on the accelerator pedal in an effort to make her car go faster. To try and calm herself down she had Rhys on speaker phone, it was something that they always seemed to do when they were crossing the Wash.

"You had your jabs?" asked Rhys with a chuckle.

"Yep, even got some of their funny money too, just in case, won't be buying any food though."

"Should be safe if you get something in a sealed package." Countered Rhys

"Why is it free to get into England but you have to pay to get out?" mused Rhys.

"Depends if you go over the old bridge or the new one." Replied Gwen smashing down the outside of the new bridge at about ninty five. "Here I go Lover, wish me luck." She shouted and ended the call, she needed to focus and Rhys knew that, didn't he? She zoomed down the M32 and then got stuck in the city centre traffic, cursing and banging the wheel she finally dumped the car on double yellows next to College Green.

"Can't park here." Intoned a traffic warden, bored with his job and high on the importance of wearing a natty peaked cap.

"Torchwood" shouted Gwen walking away.

"TorchWhat? Don't care, we clamp here you know." He said officiously and wetting his pencil, starting on a ticket.

"Whatever, just don't touch the wheels." Shouted Gwen over her shoulder.

The traffic warden shook his head and went to put the yellow plastic envelope under the wiper, screaming in fright as the car firstly refused to let him lift the wiper before giving him an electric shock. He tried again and a voice started telling him that the car was alarmed and a signal had been sent to a private security firm. Looking for the red strobing light and expecting it to drive off by itself he started to walk quickly in the wrong direction – he wasn't paid enough for this, little did he know the alarm was very terrestrial – Ianto had just modified the voice box from one of Davids broken Buzz Lightyear toys as a joke last Christmas.

Gwen clicked her Bluetooth, "Jack, I'm here." She said quietly pulling her hair over the offending communication device, she still felt as if God was likely to smite her for using technology in a church.

"We can't see if you do that." Stated Jack laconically back in the Hub. To Gwen he sounded dangerously calm which couldn't be good, what she didn't know was that he had spent the last two hours while she had been on the road pulling the Hub and the Rift manipulator into pieces, shouting at Martha to bring wires, fasten couplings and generally being obnoxious. Martha was trying to be patient but had decided she needed a time out and was now on the way back from Costa. Gwen pulled her hair back behind her ear and went into the cathedral looking for the same spot that Ianto had been drawn in.

"Go find the choir stalls." Ordered Jack , Gwen consulted a wooden map board placed near the entrance, "Turn towards the altar look for the big pipey thing and find the seaty things." He said as his impatience showed through as childishness.

Gwen's heels tapped across the stone floor as she hurried past one or two tourists and an elderly guide, she cupped her hand over her ear to hide the comms unit as they smiled at her.

"Yes thank you Jack, very helpful." She said finding the place she was looking for and getting the copy of the drawing out of her bag. As she walked under the organ she could hear the alarms going off in the Hub and she heard Martha shouting about coffee.

"Are you there yet?" asked Jack like a little child and Gwen just humphed in reply.

Martha brought the coffee over and quickly settled in front of one of the screens bringing up Gwen's GPS and a map of the cathedral to cross reference the location. Gwen kept looking round to try and find the right angle making the image on screen move dizzyingly fast.

"Slow down with the head movements." Shouted Jack, temporarily deafening Gwen.

"Jesus Jack." She hissed, "Oh God, Oh sorry, blaspheming, stopping now." She took a deep breath and then stunned both Martha and Jack by turning 180 and sitting down in a pew facing the wrong direction.

"Now is not the time for a rest Gwen." Snapped Jack

"You ok Gwen?" asked Martha showing the difference in focus of the two people left back in the Hub.

"Yes, but I need to talk to you Jack."

"Can we do the talking once we have Ianto and Jenny back please?" Asked Jack, Gwen could see him stood with his hands on his hips taking on the glazed look they all took on when they were basically talking into thin air.

"Well that's just it. Do we relay want to open the Rift? Last time we did that…" she shivered as she got a flashback of Jack laid out in the mortuary drawer.

"Last time _You_ opened the Rift _You_ didn't know what _You_ were doing, a bit like a child ripping open a bag of sweets and it spilling everywhere, this time it's like I am the parent with a pair of scissors surgically opening it so we can fold it over and keep the contents fresh." The emphasis on the past misdemeanor didn't go past Gwen and she pursed her mouth.

"But turn the bag upside down and some of the sweets will still get out." Snapped Gwen trying to get her point across.

"What are you suggesting?" he retorted, he was going to be having serious words about followership soon.

"Do you really want to do this, is it really the only way, I mean what if it's another trick, what if these space tourists whatever they were are actually some sort of omen or something." As she said it sounded crazy, but then again so did most things at Torchwood

"I am not leaving Ianto stuck in Pride and Prejudice, that's final Gwen, get the reading."

Gwen took a moment to think about her next move.

"I'll do this on one condition." She said with a strength she wasn't sure she felt. Silence crackled between them making Martha distinctly uncomfortable.

"Go on." He said in a very measured tone to cover his anger and his impatience.

Gwen took a deep breath. "You wait till I get back, we don't know what is going to fall through this hole we are going to open up and you will need someone to watch your back."

"My squad is on standby and I'm here to." Said Martha not wanting to butt in on the private tiff but she felt Gwen needed some reassurance.

"But you could both be involved with Ianto and Jenny, you need someone with local knowledge and who knows how to contain anything that comes through, and it's not as if they're going to know the difference, the calculation is for a set time with them,"

Jack pulled at his bottom lip and turned round to look at Martha, she nodded ever so slightly.

"Agreed." He said quietly and plonked himself down in one of the chairs in defeat.

Gwen knew how much that had cost him so she quickly got up and walked towards the place where the drawing had been taken. She followed the directions from Cardiff where they had the drawing superimposed over the view from Gwen's camera, she felt like she was in a game of human chess taking a step forward, then sideways till Martha and Jack agreed she was in the right place. Jack hit the enter key on the computer to fix the GPS and rolled back.

"You've got two hours and we're starting the process." Said Jack.

Gwen sighed and started walking smartly back to her car, she muttered a small payer about the traffic because she knew if she was a second late he would start without her.

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In another Bristol the sun was just starting to peep weakly through the join in the wooden shutters. It had been a difficult night, Ianto had wandered between high fever and bouts of tooth shattering shivers. Between them Jenny and Grace had cooled and warmed as necessary and had cleaned him up as his body had failed him. Each phase only lasted twenty minutes, half an hour and then they had to change again, covers on, covers off, bank up the fire, open the door to the hall to reduce the heat. Jenny had tried to get as much fluid between his lips as possible, dehydration would kill him just as surely as the infection, and it had been going well until after about three hours the contents of his stomach had come up and it had taken all her wits to stop him choking on his own vomit. Illness was not glamorous.

She walked over to the window and opened the shutter a crack, as the door opened and the maid of all work came into bank up the fire. The young girl could have been no more than 14 and looked like she wanted to run screaming, Jenny wondered if there was anything extraordinary about her, was she hiding like she had? Jenny waved the girl in and went back to looking out the window, they were on the outskirts of Bristol, possibly on the Downs and she and Ianto needed to be in Bristol Cathedral in 36 hours. Great, could someone please invent the internal combustion engine in the next 12 hours, along with antibiotics. She thought through a few wacky options that included flying and invisibility cloaks before taking a few seconds to watch the magnificent thoroughbreds of the stables mill round before the grooms took them for morning exercise. She knew then she was going to have to steal a horse and hope to get away with it, one problem down, how to get a man at deaths door on the back of it was another…


	23. Planning and hoping

Jenny took a deep draft of fresh air. It was nearly three in the afternoon and she had finally been persuaded to leave Ianto's side. It had been hard work to get her to leave but she had realised she was making herself much more obvious by working through, even though she knew she would be good for a few more days. It was some sort of switch she seemed able to turn on and off, she could go days without sleep, storing up the tiredness like some sort of time camel. So about an hour ago she had consented to lie down while the other ladies of the household fussed round her 'husband' who was still teetering on the edge of life. Partly she couldn't rest because she was just about to crash and partly she needed to test out her hair brained plan.

Nonchalantly she walked across the yard to stare out at the paddock, a few mares trotted round and there was a large brown foal standing splay legged near it's mother. One of the horses came over slowly and waited to be patted, well waited for food but was happy with a nose rub as she crooned nonsense at her. Suddenly the mare tensed and pulled away as Jenny heard hooves on the gravel and turned to see three stable boys trying to contain a flighty stallion. She smiled and walked towards the beautiful beast as the men tried to control the skittering beast, they tried to warn her off in a deferential way but she calmly kept eye contact and walked straight towards him. Gently she reached up and touched the soft part of his nose and he pulled back snorting and pawing the ground but she continued whispering nonsense and within seconds he was gently pushing at her neck.

"Well I never." Exasperated the oldest stable hand, a man who wouldn't see fifty again and had no discernable teeth left in his head. "I ain't never seen old Hermes do that for anyone but the Master."

The two younger hands just looked on in awe. They weren't to know that this jet black behemoth had started life as a rather spindly bandy legged foal that most people wrote off, including his own mother, only kept alive by Jenny's own love and many another sleepless night. The foal had been the last present she had given Percy before he had married Grace and she had disappeared and it seemed the horse had a long memory. Jenny took Hermes reins from the shocked lad and started to walk him towards the stable. A plan was forming in her head and this was the perfect opportunity to find the layout of the stables.

After settling the horse in his box she had breezed out of the stable and back into the house in a much better frame of mind, she had to take a good few calming breaths remembering to look grave as she went back in the sick room, when all she wanted to do was shout from the roof tops that this thing was going to work. Two seconds inside the room and it was obvious that he was no better and possibly worse. His whole frame was shaking, only slightly but enough to exhaust a weakened body, she smiled slightly in greeting to Grace and the housekeeper and assumed a position by his side. The housekeeper who had been in the room all day went out of the door to arrange the rest of the house, now to enact the final part of the plan she needed Grace to leave the room too.

Ianto was holding his own but not getting any better and with lack of hydration and now way of keeping his energy levels up this would be a battle he would lose in this time and place. However she kept going as if she didn't have years of knowledge and practice let alone light years of advanced research, but none of it was any good without the advanced drugs and machinery that also went with it. The light faded again and the household sprang into life again, Jenny heard the dressing gong as candles were brought into the room and she sensed her chance.

"Why don't you join the rest of the family for dinner, things seem quiet here I'm sure I can cope." It looked like Grace was about to refuse when she dropped the killer blow, "I'd really like some time alone with my husband too, there are things I need to say." She dropped her eyes, the very picture of demure innocence. Luckily the hint was taken.

"Can I send something up?" Jenny nodded

"And perhaps some beef broth?" she tried to make it sound even more pathetic than it was, there was no way Ianto could take food anymore and they both knew it.

About half an hour later one of the foot men came bearing a tray heavily laden with a game pie and some very overdone vegetables. Truth be known she was quite hungry, days without sleep meant she was working on fresh energy and she threw the food down, followed quickly by the sponge pudding and the glass of thick red wine. Such a pity it was a lovely etched glass, if she could get it back to their Cardiff it would pay the mortgage on Iantos flat and leave enough over to get Gwen the deposit on that Victorian lodge she had her heart set on. But what the hell, she knocked the stem and broke the bowl from it leaving her with a wickedly sharp pointed glass stick, just what she needed. When Torchwood had experimented on her they thought they had tried everything to get her to pass on her extraordinary healing powers. That was the difference between Jack and herself, unless Jack died it could take him the same length of time to heal as any other human - though there did seem like days when he healed with speed – so once the Victorians had realized that they couldn't capture his regenerative skills they had decided to use them instead. However she knew they had got angry at the lack of progress and hadn't used the one combination that did sometimes work. Fresh wounds and arterial blood, her body had used any goodness by the time it became venous and it became deoxygenated. She tied a bootlace tightly with a self tightening knot she could pull with her teeth when she needed the blood flow to stop and then took one of the clean napkins and scrubbed at the barely scabbed skin to expose it again. Ianto screamed and Jenny hastily put her hand over his mouth, his eyes had opened for the first time in nearly two days but there was little behind the glassy stare. He seemed to calm down after the initial shock and it was time for the final step.

She tightened the tourniquet and wiggled the glass stem, weighing up her choice one last time, using her middle finger she found the spot she needed and then stabbed down. She managed to miss the first time and quickly tried again before the pain kicked in. God she knew it was going to be messy but raising her own blood pressure by missing and the pent up worry saw a high pressure jet gush across the bed before she managed to control the flow downwards and onto Iantos arm. She was immediately trying to bring it under control, because while she was fairly sure she wouldn't bleed out she could end up with a nasty headache and be useless for a couple of days as her body recovered. She pulled the bootlace with her teeth and pressed hard as the slightly orange blood still dripped out, she tried to cover as much of the wound as possible and prayed a little more. She'd done it in the past with small wounds, cut fingers, grazed knees on children who didn't question how you'd also managed to hurt yourself but a whole arm and a body in the throes of shutting down was a new challenge. Ianto started to moan and the fingers on his burnt hand started to move which cracked the skin more, the moan started to turn into a high pitched keening it spoke of someone used to hiding the sound of pain. Jenny was getting worried, she couldn't calm him down until she had herself under control and the blood was showing no sign of stopping. Experience told her that a small drop went a long way but there had to be a pint or more pooling on the bed.

Jenny quickly pressed down on the brachial artery, swearing at her own stupidity, at the amount of blood now covering the top sheet and most of life in general. Ianto was moaning and whimpering in equal measure and Jenny just hoped it didn't attract anyone's attention. She pulled the bootlace tighter with her teeth one last time as her head started to swim and the flow started to lessen. Two minutes later breathing a sigh of relief the flow seemed to stop and she wiggled her tingling fingers while still applying pressure to the top of her arm. She scooted forward, instantly regretting the movement, to put her hand on Ianto's forehead, not being able to really feel it she slapped it down and Ianto's eyes snapped open.

Jenny apologised as his eyes roamed across the room and he started to sit up, automatically reaching for a weapon he didn't have. Interesting what Torchwood instilled in you, she thought as she struggled one handed to keep him down. Suddenly his eyes latched on to hers and instead of soothing nothingness words she went into command mode.

"Ianto, calm down, you're safe and no one is going to hurt you. If you continue you could hurt yourself and you will alert people to us." She repeated herself as Ianto attempted to grab hold of her arm with his good hand. Tentatively she let go of her own arm, with an agonizing burn as the blood flowed back, and let him take hold. Ianto laid back coughing and then trying to catch his breath looking firstly at his hand, then at Jenny and then round the room.

"Shit, arm, shit, pain." Said Ianto with a breath between each word.

Jenny picked up the laudanum with a shaking hand and tipped half a dozen drops into the invalid sipper and then helped hold it to his lips, automatically he batted it away but patiently she explained what it was and he finally drank the liquid. By the time he collapsed back into the pillow they were both breathing hard and heads were swimming.

Jenny finally surveyed the scene in front of her and belatedly released the bootlace round her arm, which was cold and blue. The counterpane was deep orange apart from round Ianto's arm where it was a much darker colour and streaked with yellow. Quickly she pulled off the top sheet and bundled it onto the floor in the hope that the servants would just dump it in the boiling tub, the blanket was nearly as bad but not quite as bad.

"How are you feeling?" she asked giving him a professional once over.

"Headache, arm hurts, dignity stuffed." He mumbled giving a proficient account of himself.

"I'll explain later, act unconscious." She said hearing footsteps on the landing. Ianto was only too pleased to comply as he closed his eyes and she threw a clean napkin over his bubbling and rapidly healing arm and pulled her sleeve down over the drying blood on her arm. There was a quiet knock and the senior footman pushed the door open as a young maid nervously and silently cleared away the tray, including it's broken glass and the bloodied cover as the footman gave an imperious look over the room, he was obviously in practice for becoming the butler.

"Madam will be up presently." He announced and then looked her up and down, "Shall I send up the ladies maid?"

As soon as they cleared the room she gave Ianto a quick nudge and he woke from the gentle slumber he had fallen into. She offered him some of the soup that had rescued and he took a few sips before from the spoon she proffered. He struggled to sit up and Jenny went to help him.

"I feel weird" said Ianto looking at Jenny as if he was drunk, "Tingly" he clarified.

"It's your body having an allergic reaction to," she stopped as she didn't want to gross him out with what she had just done, "What just happened. It will get worse and I can give you something to sleep through some of it once you've eaten something and got a bit of liquid back in your body, but I can only give you something for tonight, tomorrow you have to be able to move and I can't carry you."

He took more of the proffered soup and then some of the water she had heated in the fire earlier. Exhausted he fell back on the pillows and sighed. He experimentally wiggled the fingers on his affected hand and winced as the healing skin pulled and cracked.

"Shouldn't have done that." He said with a slight slur "Am I scared for life? Jack won't want a cripple in his team, he won't want me slowing him down." He said with the foresight of a drunk.

Jenny pulled the covers straight and assessed his arm before gently putting it back down.

"You might be lucky now, the infection is in retreat and it looks like a happy side effect is that your body is healing as well as mine, so you shouldn't have too many lasting effects." She stroked his fringe and arranged it out of his eyes, "Besides Jack is besotted with you, so I don't think you need to worry about him leaving you for something as minor as this."

"It's not minor, I need this hand to file all the archives, to tie my tie, to fire a gun. I'm not use without both hands."

"We can change your working arrangements if we have to, but I don't think Jack will be throwing you out on the street, you only have to look at him to see he's besotted with you."

"Can't throw me out, it's my flat." He said starting to giggle.

God only knows what was going on with his metabolism, she could smell acetone on his breath so there was something going on. She wished she could run tests, let science tell her what was wrong but she just had to rely on her whits.

After a few moments contemplating her options and as Ianto started to sing what was turning into a choice rugby ditty she decided to try knocking him out again and hoping that he would sleep off the worst of the affects on his body over night. She got him to take a little more water and talked gently to him as his eyelids became heavy and the words of the chant became less discernable. He had been quiet for a few minutes when the door opened again and Grace swept in after her supper.

"My goodness what happened here?" she said surveying what Jenny suddenly realized was a scene of near carnage.

"His fever broke and he broke the skin on his arm causing it to bleed."

"I'm surprised there is any blood left in him." She said yanking the bell pull. "You need to get changed and I'll get the staff to change this bed immediately."

The housekeeper seemed to glide into the room and had the same look of horror on her face as her mistress.

"I think I should bandage his arm to stop him doing the same again." Squeaked Jenny, she didn't need them seeing that he had miraculously started developing new skin, the low light levels were fine at a distance but close up it would be obvious. She snatched a bandage from the basket that had been left lurking unused on the bedside table and efficiently covered his arm and was surprised to find he didn't stir at all.

Gwen was driving like a woman possessed, swearing gently and constantly at the traffic along the M4. She had ten minutes to do what would take twenty even on a wet Sunday night in January, she swore again. It had been the traffic trying to get across the bastard bridge, never quite sure why they charged to get back in to Gods own country a nd not to get out. A tanker with lots of x's and a new sign that looked like a dead fish in a dead swamp had decided to take the lower end of the canopy and had become stuck and had to wait to see how many fish they could kill in the Severn. Gwen was in two minds, if she rang Jack he could wait, but more likely he would start early as she wouldn't make his self appointed meaningless deadline. She screamed at the stupid flat cap wearing moron who was only doing 75 in the outside lane when the phone went.

"Not a good time." She snarled thinking it was Rhys with another one of his, 'just seeing how you are love' calls, his clingy nature was nice most of the time but occasionally it was just grating.

"Pity, I was about to ask how you were and you steal my thunder." Smarmed Jack, Gwen could instantly tell he wanted something. "Where are ya?" He asked as soon as the thought entered her head. Was this a test? She thought and decided that life was too complicated to try guessing at this moment in time.

"Why?"

"Well Martha and I were fancying chips and I wondered if you'd passed the Frying Scotsman yet? Got to love that deep fried everything."

Gwen groaned, the Torchwood chippy of choice was the far side of the city and it was going to take hours.

"We'll wait for you, get me a cod and a deep fried haggis, do you think we should get Ianto and Jenny something and keep it warm, Martha says she'll have anything vegetarian." It was like a stream of consciousness.

Gwen sighed inwardly, this was the reprieve she needed,

"I'll turn back now." She said as if it was a really difficult choice.

"Thanks Gwen." Said Jack. "I would keep going for another three junctions though."

Blast the sodding GPS tracker…


	24. The beginning

Jack tossed back another one of the warm chips as if he didn't have a care in the world, Gwen was a little spooked at his apparent lack of concern. She had collared Martha as soon as she could to ask if he had lost his mind,

"When you said it didn't matter what time we opened the rift, it was like something snapped and he's been really calm ever since."

"Dangerously calm." Commented Gwen and Martha nodded, the conversation ended abruptly as Jack had bounced back in like Tigger on speed.

Back with the food Gwen pushed away half the portion of chips on the paper, Jack raised an eyebrow and then snagged them.

"Jack, can you go over the plan one more time please." It wasn't that she was slow on the uptake but he had spoken that fast words had run into each other. As it was clear that Jack was enjoying the meal too much Martha chipped in.

"My guys will secure the perimeter of the Plass, Andy will spread the rumour of a bomb at the Synnedd and we've already planted the idea of some freakish weather in case the EMP from the Rift knocks anything out."

"Right and we'll both be up on the Plass while Jack sets the manipulator away and what will be see?"

There was a pregnant pause before Jack bundled up the chip paper and threw it in the general direction of the bin.

"No idea, never been done before, exciting isn't it?" said Jack, who thought he was fooling the two women with his attitude. "Shall we get on with it?"

Gwen pushed herself out of the chair and picked up the half dozen assorted firearms arranged on the desk in front of her, they had no idea what else might try and sneak through, they were Torchwood and they had to be ready. As she and Martha made their way to the lift Gwen suddenly turned back to face Jack.

"I need you to know that whatever happens I'm here for you and for Ianto and I'll do whatever I can for Jenny."

"I sense a but." Said Jack not looking up from the computer screen where he was inputting the last pieces of data.

"But I need to know is Ianto going to be affected in the same way as Jonah? Like the other people we take to Flat Holm?"

"They surf the Rift with no protection, no purpose and just happen to get spat out here, Ianto and Jenny are on the shortest possible route from there to here, no time to pick up the radiation, the trickiest bit is not opening the Rift in the middle of the water tower, or the steps of the dock so they might injure themselves coming out of the portal and that is why we have the galaxies best Doctor." He looked at Martha, packing enough hardware to break the Geneva convention a thousand times over, but slung over her shoulder was a pretty hefty med bag.

"Not the best in the galaxy." Said Martha quietly

"He might not be in this solar system." Parried Jack as the lift started to ascend.

Gwen and Martha hit the surface with a slight thump and they both stepped out on to the darkened Plass. In the time it had taken them to eat and explain it had gone from daylight to twilight, perhaps that was part of Jacks plan, if he had one. PC Andy Davison suddenly saw his old colleague, it was as if she had appeared from thin air, and started walking over to her and the other woman with her. He held his stab vest with both hands and walked with the slight rollercoaster walk of the established policeman. Gwen saw him and moved to close the gap between them.

"Evening all." Said Andy and Gwen rolled her eyes. "Good night for spooky doos."

"Martha meet Andy, Cardiffs finest." Said Gwen

"You've been handing round Mulder for too long you've stared to sound like him. Sarky like." he added as qualification

"I'm giving you a compliment you cabbage." Snarked Gwen back at him.

"Whatever, I'm still here to clean up after you, don't suppose you're going to let me in on the secret?"

"We are going to open a Rift in space and time and we have no idea what's going to fall out of it so we need the Plass cleared." Said Gwen simply.

"Pull the other one Gwen, there's no need to be patronising." He huffed

"Suit yourself. Area cleared?"

"Apart from us and some scary looking goons in black, special ops they said, heard that story once too often from you, look if they were special ops wouldn't they be wearing camouflage and khaki?"

"Not if it's dark outside." Stated Martha as she waved her hand round at the night sky. "I better go and check if they're ready." She deliberately turned to her left so Andy could catch a glimpse of the side arm she was carrying, no one called her guys goons, apart from her.

Andy looked a little apologetic but didn't manage to get the words out before Martha had jogged off to a black Landover hidden in a corner near the service entrance of the Opera house. Andy started to talk but Gwen was listening to Jack in her ear.

"What you say love." She said turning back to him.

"So you've got new blood then? Only I thought you might have asked, you know I wanted to, bit of alright though." You could hear the pout.

"Oh Andy this job isn't all glitz and glamour you know, besides Martha is the UNIT commander, in charge of the Goons."

Andy shifted noisily from foot to foot and took hold of his vest again.

"Where are Laurel and Hardy then?" He asked looking into the dark middle distance

"Don't let Jack hear you say that he's close by, he has ways and means you know."

"He doesn't scare me, much." He snorted

"He scares me sometimes." Sighed Gwen.

"And Ianto, only there's a game next week see and I wondered which end we were going to take, Cardiff or Newport."

Gwen had glazed over again, listening.

"He'll be along soon, tell you what get us a cuppa."

Andy paused, "You want rid don't you, I get it, see you when all the fun's over."

Gwen smiled, "It's for the best Andy, and I'll get Ianto to call."

With Andy gone and Martha back by her side Gwen gave the final word to Jack and then just waited.

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

The night hadn't been the most peaceful for Ianto, but he had got some rest. Strange pains had shot through his body and subsided as fast as they arrived and his arm had tingled and twitched all by itself. Jenny had finally fallen asleep beside him, they had managed to make it through the day and night was currently falling. He picked at the food that sat on a tray in front of him, his stomach was doing flip flops at the thought of getting up and dressed let alone on the back of a horse with another person. He'd tried to stand a few hours before and his legs had skated away from him like Bambi on ice and in a few very short hours he was going to have to get on the back of a horse that no one else could control, with another person and find his way in the dark through a strange and near mystical city. He broke out in a cold sweat again.

"Can't we just send a letter to Jack and change the date he opens the Rift, give us a few days?" he blurted out as Jenny walked through the door. She looked as if she had put on a few stone with the trousers she had appropriated from one of the unused bedrooms under her dress. She passed over another set of clothes for Ianto before sitting on the edge of the bed.

"It changes the calculations needed and I can't do it without the manipulator programme and the handheld is dead."

Ianto pulled back the covers and started to dress looking cagily round the room.

"I've told them not to disturb us. Give it an hour or so and most people should be in bed, we'll sneak out of the back door and snag Hermes."

Ianto took a deep breath at the thought of the horse

"Don't worry I'll do the driving you just need to hang on."

"That's what worries me." He held out a hand for help to stand as he pulled up the old fashioned trousers and took a few minutes to make his legs work. Carefully he started shuffling across the room and Jenny stayed in snatching distance,

"If I go this speed we'll have to ride the horse up the aisle." He said finally getting round the other side of the bed.

"They're going to think we're one of the horsemen of the apocalypse as it is." She said giggling. There was a pause.

"What if this goes wrong, what if the rift doesn't open?" He rushed out.

"Let's think positive and cross those bridges if we come to them."

Ianto sighed and Jenny pulled him in to a slight embrace and they stayed that way watching the flickering fire.

When the appointed time arrived Jenny checked Ianto over one last time and took his arm as they snook out of a crack in the door. It was hard moving round a strange house in the dark, especially when it creaked and groaned at every step. As they got down to the kitchen level the small light of the moon though the windows was lost and they found themselves in the pitch dark. Trying every door handle and making enough noise to wake the dead, or least that was what it sounded like close up, they finally found a door into the yard. Even thought the house was cold the outside world was much colder and they both took a sharp breath and pushed out into the night. Jenny was temporarily disorientated as she had expected to come out of the hose in a different direction but after few steps in the wrong direction she pulled Ianto causing him to yelp, a dog barked in the distance.

"Sorry, I forgot." She said eyes darting everywhere.

In a reversal of role Ianto patted her arm, "Calm down, I trust you to get us out of here."

She looked him directly in the eye and nodded and reflexively looked at the pocket watch "We've got plenty of time, you explained everything to me and it was a really good plan. Believe in yourself." He seriously didn't need her going to pieces now so he tried to sound much calmer than he felt.

They rounded the house and ran across the open space to the stable leaving Ianto breathing hard. Jenny slipped inside the door and when he had regained control of himself he followed her in, there was a small oil lamp on the wall of the tack room turned very low so he could just see her moving shadow.

"Go and unbolt all of the other boxes, don't open the door but if they come searching for us and make a racket some of the spooked horses will bolt and they'll waste time catching them."

He could hear the low whinnying of some of the horses and the odd snort as they caught onto the fact something was happening that was out of the ordinary. He worked slowly but efficiently down the boxes, some of the animals were curious, most were just asleep, a few started to nose out of the box as soon as they could. He looked back down the centre aisle and he could see Jenny leading the biggest horse he had ever seen out of the box. He hurried back to her and looked it in the eye, he knew he would lose a staring contest if he tried one. She led him to the side of the stall and Ianto used the door to give him a lift up, even when he was well he didn't think he could have mounted him without help, he scooted forward on the saddle, it was seriously uncomfortable, but he'd always thought riding was the devils transport. He felt Jenny plonk on the saddle behind him and wiggle her feet into the stirrups, he grabbed onto the saddle for grim death as he felt her arms come round his waist for the reins.

"Ready?" she asked and she felt him nod. She squeezed the horses flanks and it walked sedately to the door, even though he knew what was coming next he could honestly say he wasn't ready as she kicked the horse into life and he bolted at a serious gallop through the door, into the yard and as if on autopilot, over the fence and into the field parallel with the drive with no more effort than he would if carrying a child. Ianto could feel his knuckles going white as he tried in vain to wrap his legs round the horses belly to cling on. The dogs were barking and he could hear the sound of hooves on the yard as small lights began to appear. He didn't dare keep looking back as Jenny, no longer whispering notified him of another imminent jump.

Jenny kicked the horse forward and it felt like a sonic boom to Ianto as Hermes went over the fence in one fluid movement. It was like he didn't feel the weight of two people on his back. Ianto risked a quick look over his shoulder and saw a bobbing lantern round the stable block.

"They know." he said gripping onto the saddle for dear life

"It'll take them some time to sort out the mess of horses and tack before they can follow us, on Hermes here we should be half way there by then." Ianto didn't doubt that, pity they couldn't take him back to the future with them he would be a sure fire hit for the Grand National. Jenny veered off the track and lent forward over Ianto to avoid the trees, he started to protest but she interrupted her mouth close to his ear.

"The gates are locked on a night, I found a gap in the wall about half a mile up here, then we can be on the road and away."

She slowed down as the undergrowth thickened and then jumped off as it became apparent the fearless horse was afraid of the dark. Ianto nearly lost his seat as the beast scrambled over the wall, as Jenny remounted, a feat that amazed Ianto, he took the time to look back and see the lanterns coming down the drive. He hissed at Jenny and pointed, this was going to be close, she spurred him back into life and secretly crossed her fingers. They were going to have to go past the gate and while they might not have got the horses untangled they weren't so bothered about firearms laws in the 19th century. She kept urging the jet black horse onwards and prayed they would be more worried about hitting their master's prize horse than stopping them. As they rounded the corner the gate appeared to be close still be they could hear noise behind it, thank god for sleepy gate keepers she thought, but as they got level the blackness started to split and the wooden gates began to open. They were about level as the people started to spill through shouting and looking much like a mob from a Halloween movie with flaming torches and pitchforks. Jenny glanced at the people and fixed on Percy she took a deep breath and shouted as they thundered past.

"Sorry and thank you, I'll leave him safe in town."

Percy just tipped a salute in a gesture reminiscent of Jack, they both prayed they would see the real thing soon.

After about a mile Jenny slowed the horse and tapped Ianto on the shoulder.

"Holding up" she asked simply. Ianto just nodded, staying on the bloody horse was taking all his strength. She squeezed him slightly and reached forward to look at his pocket watch and was happy to see they were making good time. After a few seconds she nudged Hermes and he happily bolted forward. Ianto just marvelled at the dark cityscape in front of him, no bigger than a decent town now and with no polluting electric lights it was Christmas card pretty, their target the cathedral was pretty much the highest biggest building, finally he had hope.

They didn't slow down till they got to the cobbled streets where making haste got you noticed and somehow got to College Green without being noticed, they only had about five minutes to spare. Jenny helped Ianto off the horse and pushed him against a wall to support his jellified legs so she could tie up the horse as promised. They pushed open the door of the unlit and unlocked church and looked down the aisle. Hand in hand they walked as quickly as Ianto could toward the choir.

"What are we looking for?"

Jenny just shrugged "New to me too, bright lights, electric sparkles?" she hazarded.

Expectantly they just stood, the moonlight filtering through the stained glass.

Jenny started tapping her foot nervously, she knew she would feel it before she could see it and she wasn't feeling anything. Ianto looked at the watch, every passing second meant the chance of discovery, being snatched away when they were so close. Jenny started scratching her fingernails across the inside of her palms,

"Get ready." She said spinning round to see where it might be coming from.

Suddenly there was a blazing chink of light which caused them both to shield their eyes, it split the air from floor to ceiling knocking Jenny to the ground a few meters away and winding her.

"Go, quickly." She shouted at Ianto he looked at her pushing herself up and made to help her but she waved him away. "We might not have much time."

Ianto knew that the amount of energy this would take would tax even the Hub's resources and seeing that she was getting herself up slowly he took the decision to step forward into the tear in space and time. He could faintly see the Plass on the other side, Gwen and Martha were huddling against the strong winds ripping through the hole they were creating. Ianto felt like holding his nose and diving feet first, he could feel his breathing increase as he remembered the last time he put his hand through an energy field like this. Taking a deep breath he took one last look back and stepped forward realising as the momentum took him into the energy that Jenny hadn't moved.

It felt like being sucked into a whirlwind, he had images of Dorothy and Toto, of a washing machine pulling him forward. He flailed around in the thick air to turn and look at Jenny as she waved and the light then like the shutter on a camera her image disappeared.


	25. Catch

Gwen tapped her fingers on the sleeves of her leather jacket. The noise was slight but annoying. They had been stood on the decking of the Plass for what seemed like hours but was actually no more than 10 minutes. Jack had reported that one of the cables had burnt out and he knew exactly where to get a replacement from, Gwen had wanted to run down and help but he insisted it would taken seconds, she often wondered if his immortality had affected his sense of time, especially in extreme danger. Suddenly there was a shout from Jack over the airwaves, what sounded like the most almighty thump and the Plass seemed to shudder. The women automatically drew their weapon of choice and if they listened carefully the safety clicked off another thirteen automatic weapons under red berets. They circled, not knowing what they were looking for, just that there would be something.

Suddenly Jack appeared, totting his Webley spinning round wide eyed and ready. "Anything?"

They shook their heads

Gwen pulled out one of Tosh's favourite Rift detection tools and pressed the screen in hope more than knowledge.

"It's coming." Said Gwen rather unnecessarily and swung the device round to try and pick up a direction. Jack paced away to the right of the water tower, feeling something he couldn't put his finger on. Suddenly the Plass became light as day as the sky ripped open and fingers of light across the spectrum scythed out about 10 foot in the air. Following closely behind came a sonic boom that knocked everyone to the floor, Gwen cracked her head on the stone steps of the fountain and screamed more out of shock at first, Martha went to scrabble over to her but it felt like the air was smothering her like a soaking wool blanket making it hard to move. Jack who had been flattened with his face into the deck tried to turn over but found the air so heavy it was like moving through porridge, and he didn't want to explain how he knew what that feeling was like.

As Jack struggled to turn his head he saw an indistinct shape wheeling and turning, at first he thought it was an unfortunate gull caught up in the atmosphere above the Rift. Then he realised as well as wings it had legs, and the wings were very thin.

"Ianto"

The shape became a body, flailing backwards through the light as if it was falling from a great height, Jack cursed as he had over compensated for the height of the decking above the ground surface and the rift had opened about seven foot in the air. It was dark behind him but you could just make out the slightly lighter shape of a window backlight slightly by the moon which just about illuminated a small waving hand. As soon as it arrived the light seemed to be sucked backwards and Jack feared it was going to take Ianto with it but there was a second almighty crack through the air and as suddenly as it appeared the light was gone and taking with it the heavy air. With the extra pressure removed the effort Jack was having to put in to move became redundant and he flipped over smacking his hand across the desk catching the knuckles very harshly and giving himself a dead hand.

As the Rift closed Ianto left the cushioned floating feeling that had held him in the Rift, time had stood still in the energy cloud, in fact he had become quite comfortable. It came as quite a shock when he felt himself propelled backwards again and he shot out into the dark and his head and then his back connected with something very hard. Cursing in several different dialects Jack tried to push himself up on his injured hand as he scrambled across to Ianto. Wide eyed and open mouthed Ianto laid on the deck choking to try and get air in, sounding like a sea lion as only a minuscule amount of air was drawn in as his solar plexus spasmed with the shock from the fall. As Jack got to him his lips were just starting to turn from pale to blue and his eyes were darting everywhere, smothering the urge to snog Ianto senseless Jack swiftly surveyed the young mans body for any obvious injury that he could exacerbate, noting the fingers scrabbling to get purchase and tearing his nails instead and the feet doing a jig that wouldn't have looked out of place at the end of a hangmans noose.

"Ianto, breath through your nose." He commanded, slightly gratified that those beautiful blue eyes immediately latched onto his at the instruction, cognisance or base level survival at least there was something left in there. He hollered for Martha who was trying to stem the flow of blood from the not insignificant hole in Gwen's scalp and made his decision. Kneeling so he was facing the same as his young lover he lifted Ianto's shoulders to sit him up and then bent him slightly forward, at the same time he placed a strong hand at the bottom of his rib cage and began to gently pummel the area to loosen his diaphragm till it would work again. Jack spoke gentle, loving nonsense into Ianto's ear as he felt his hand folding over his. It felt rough and damp and as he stole a look down he realised this was the outcome of the injury he had sustained from the time bubble.

The massage was just beginning to work as Martha made it over the decking, shouting orders and stripping off one pair of bloodied gloves before pulling another pair from her enormous emergency kit. She shone her torch in his eyes asking pertinent questions that Ianto couldn't answer, what happened? Where did he hurt?

Jack raged between wanting to shout at her and needing to keep Ianto calm so he kept his own council, she was only doing her job, Owen would have been the same. She started pulling electronic gear from her bag, placed an oxygen mask over his nose and mouth and started barking orders at the UNIT team that had poured into the area. Gwen struggled over to Ianto, even though she had been told to stay still and suddenly found more caring hands taking away the bloody gauze she felt was holding her head together. It made it all feel unreal, no-one was ever sympathetic at Torchwood – there wasn't time especially now.

"How is he, how's Ianto." She asked looking at Ianto, then Jack, then Martha.

Jack was carefully placing his lover on the deck, he seemed to be able to breathe again but was an alarming shade of white, he pulled off his coat and quickly turned it into a pillow.

"He's going to be just fine." Said Jack stroking his burnt hand as Martha struggled for a vein in the other.

"Where's Jenny?" gasped Gwen her head swiveling everywhere.

"I don't know." Gasped Jack desperately, starting to swivel his head in the same way, how could he have missed the fact that only half his team had come back.

There were more UNIT soldiers running towards them, the few with instruments seemed to be happy there was nothing to record and were putting away their machines.

"There's another one, woman, early thirties, long brown hair, find her." Snapped Jack, still holding onto Ianto's hand but not longer looking at him, offering any comfort.

Martha had finally found a vein and it had taken the cannula that was now hooked up to an IV bag held by quite a nice looking young UNIT private, blonde hair straying out of the very tight bun, glad to know I'm not really gay he thought and giggled silently. He moved his gaze to Jacks face, more precisely the side of his face, this was always the problem with loving the boss, sometimes they still had to be the boss. He reached up to try and pull the mask off his face, he had something to say.

"Hey there gorgeous, you need to keep that on, no need to talk now, we can talk all you want once we have you all better." Said Jack in his most soothing voice, it could melt butter.

Ianto struggled again and got the mask off enough to make sure he could be heard,

"She didn't try to get through, she pushed me, saved me, not herself, she saved me." He stopped for a second to get his breath again. "Find her for me Jack, she saved me."

The blue eyes opened wide and bored into Jacks soul as he reached over to put the mask back on nodding, he didn't trust himself to speak. Jack looked away a second to shout at someone else but didn't move his hand from Ianto's cheek before looking down again and noticing his eyelids dropping.

"Try and stay with us darling, try and keep awake till Martha's finished." He pleaded but he knew Ianto was fighting a losing battle, his eyelids dropped again before his eyes opened so wide they nearly popped out of his head,

"No, NO, Ianto, No." he shouted as his lover started to fit.

Martha threw equipment out of her bag like kiddies at a party till she found the drugs she wanted to stop Ianto juddering and flailing about, Jack was doing his best to stop him hurting himself while trying not to cause damage by restricting the strong movements. The UNIT soldiers rushed over leaving their search for Jenny but Gwen shouted at them to keep going, wincing at the sound of her own voice in her pounding head.

"Get the vehicle over here now we need to get to Saint Helens stat." Martha never really knew what stat meant but it seemed to get results so she used it.

Jack was shaking his head, they'd discussed this, the Hub could provide all the medical equipment she needed.

"I can't cope with this on my own and Gwen needs an x-ray, she could have a fracture." Shouted Martha losing her temper as she struggled to cope with Ianto. Carefully one of the larger UNIT corporals tried to pull Jack back, failing the first time but managing a second time as Jack started to catch a sense of hopelessness.

"Please stop Ianto, come back to me, we can go to Barcelona like you always wanted, promise." He whispered as he was pulled back.

"She's not here Jack." Shouted Gwen showing her talent for turning the bloody obvious into the over dramatic.

Jack took a deep breath in through his nose and then cuffed his face with the harsh sleeve of his coat as if wiping sweat away on a hot day rather than tears and snot from his face. The expression turned hard as he placed Ianto's hand back on his chest.

"You go with the good Doctor and the this wonderful woman and make sure they get the best treatment possible, you and you clear the perimeter and check for any other damage, you get the CCTV footage from the Opera house, and you it's your lucky night – you get to be police liaison." He said pointing at the various UNIT members who were too stunned to answer back as the UNIT ambulance opened it's doors.

"What are you going to do Jack?" asked Gwen

"Find Jenny." He said with a snarl that suggested his answer was obvious.

"I'll stay and help." It was almost pleading.

"No, you need to go get checked out and then stay with Ianto till I get there."

Gwen was staring to snivel a little, a normal reaction to the shock that was setting in,

"How long will that be?"

"As long as it takes." He said grimly.

UNIT busied themselves with gathering data on the surface while Jack quietly disappeared back into the Hub where instruments had been whirring and analyzing much more data at a significantly more efficient rate. He threw his coat over the back of one of the office chairs in the Pit, it had been left in the middle of the space and it crossed his mind that Ianto had only been gone a few short days before they had become untidy again. He got up, replaced the chairs and went to make himself a very large mug of coffee, idly polishing a finger print off the chrome and gold machine. He glance across at the Rift Manipulator which was now silent again, just for a second as he had run to the surface he could have sworn he hear the whoosh of the TARDIS, but now it was silent and the cable had burnt out again leaving a mess of melted plastic and copper on the floor, that was going to be a bitch to clean so Ianto didn't moan. He was also going to have to get hot and dirty, and not in a good way, to put it back into enough order so it could stabilise the Rift, but the Rift would have to manage by itself for a few days. Getting back to the computer screen he sat for a moment before realizing that all he was doing was procrastinating so he didn't have to open the computer programmes that might in fact tell him bugger all.

Firstly he checked the easy one, the Rift monitor, there was the big spike that was obviously when they had been playing with the fabric of the universe, a very small reverse spike and then another Rift incursion somewhere near Cathays. He flicked on his comm and asked the UNIT team to go take a look, he didn't think it was big enough to let something through but he didn't need space fleas or temporal earwigs in Maindy Barracks. The computer was scrolling endlessly again as it picked up new disturbances in the fabric of time caused by an extra body that shouldn't be there, the computer was starting to put together some newly emerging centuries old news reports when he felt a prickle on the edge of his neck. Resisting the urge to take out his Webley he just snapped the catch to make it easier to draw and looked slowly round. He got up silently and walked to the stairs leading to his office and looked through the glass, his desk was much as he left it apart from a thick layer of dust and a letter in the middle of it. Wearily he opened the door and sat down on his chair contemplating what Jenny could have written this time, he didn't have the energy to go through all this again.

The handwriting was faded and scratchy and as he read it he realised it was rambling round so much that he had to fear for her state of mind. There was no date on it but she seemed to talk about the passing of time since the light in the cathedral. Jack growled, there was no useful information in the letter and he felt helpless, following the pattern of the previous few days if there had been anymore letters they should have arrived by now, the life had been lived. A thought filtered through his mind perhaps she had survived and was now just hiding from herself, she might not know when it was safe to come back. He ran back to Tosh's old computer and started the facial recognition going for the CCTV in Cardiff, then Wales, Britain, Europe, the world. As time passed with no new sightings he became despondent again, he couldn't face losing more of his team, perhaps it was time to call up that nice little Fratunity Transport he knew, skip the galaxy completely, but there was Ianto now and he couldn't just leave him behind. Ianto. Jack hadn't realised the passage of time it was at least an hour, scrap that, two hours and he hadn't heard anything. He scrambled at his comm and started to phone Martha, he got no answer but that wasn't surprising so he phoned Gwen.

"I'm here" her voice sounded so clear.

"I know you're there, get back to the Hub" he snarled.

"No I'm here behind you." Said Gwen slowly as if she were talking to a child.

Jack spun round

"I didn't hear the alarm." He looked accusingly at her.

"No, I think it's broken again, I'm fine thank you very much." She said pointing at the ugly white dressing on her forehead, "amazing what they can do with superglue these days."

Jack looked distressed, Gwen ran over to him and grabbed him in one of her bear hugs, he resisted momentarily and then hugged back.

"Ianto is ok, they've sedated him because they can't find out what caused the fit, but that's good because it means he hasn't fractured his skull." She added to try and give him some good news.

"Where is he?" Asked Jack pulling back and looking at the gash in her hairline, "We can run the Haudlican skin repairer over that you know."

"Martha is having him moved to a private room, UNIT medical staff are coming over to assist, the NHS aren't happy."

Jack harrumphed, he could argue about getting others involved but it just wasn't practical, listlessly he sat back on the desk.

"Look I've come back in so you can go over to the hospital, tell me what you need doing, Rhys has gone home to get a lasagna out of the freezer, we're getting ready for the night." She said chippily

Jack looked as if he was about to think of another excuse, Gwen knew how much he hated hospitals, places where people died, where Jack watched and remembered. She placed her hand on his arm,

"Do you want Rhys to go with you? I'll stay here look for Jenny, tell me what you've done, I'd suggest Rhys stay here but he doesn't know the computers like I do." Jack stopped her rambling by gripping her shoulders.

"What have I done to deserve someone like you?" he asked quietly "Come over here, we'll fix the manipulator before the Rift destabilizes and then I'll go, he's not going to know I'm not there if he's in a coma." He said trying to convince himself, even though he knew it was an excuse, he knew that you could hear what was being said, he just knew he wouldn't be able to think of anything that he would want Ianto to hear.

Gwen smiled, such a brilliant leader always knew what to do in an alien led crisis yet boggins when it came to feelings. Yes she had got it right when she married Rhys, bit like a chocolate caramel, crunchy outside and soft in the middle and he could be quite nifty when the world seemed to be ending.

"Tell you what, I'll make the coffee you get the tools and when Rhys arrives he'll drive you over there and we'll crack on."

Jack cracked one of his cheesy grins, "Stick with the instant, I'll wait for some of Ianto's, it won't be long."


End file.
